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The 

UNITED STATES 
OF EUROPE 

ON THE EVE OF THE 

PARLIAMENT 

OF PEACE 



BY 



W. T. STEAD 




NEW YORK 

DOUBLEDAY & MrCLURE CO. 

ig 59 



PREFACE 

In the year 1898 two strange things happened. It 
is difficult to say which was more unexpected. 

In the "West the American Bepublic, which for more 
than a hundred years had made as its proudest boast 
its haughty indifference to the temptation of territorial 
conquest, suddenly abjured its secular creed, and con- 
cluded a war upon which it had entered with every 
protestation of absolute disinterestedness by annexa- 
tions so sweeping as to invest the United States with 
all that was left of the heritage of imperial Spain. 

In the East a Sovereign autocrat, commanding the 
bayonets of four millions of trained soldiers and the 
implicit obedience of one hundred and twenty millions 
of loyal subjects, amazed and bewildered mankind by 
formally and publicly arraigning tte armaments of 
the modern world, and summoning a Conference of all 
the Powers to discuss practical measures for abating 
an evil which threatened to land civilized society in 
the abyss. 

Many other things happened in 1898, but nothing 
for a moment to compare with the significance of these 
two immense events, which, each in its own way, con- 
stitute landmarks in the evolution of the human race. 



vi PREFACE 

The Peace Rescript of the Tsar of Russia, the Treaty 
of Peace extorted at the sword's point from prostrate 
Spain — these two strongly contrasted documents con- 
stitute together one of the paradoxes of History. It 
is the pacific Republic which makes war, which multi- 
plies its army fourfold, and which seizes by the right 
of conquest the colonial possessions of Spain. It is 
the Imperial autocrat of a military empire who im- 
peaches the war system of the world, and, himself the 
master of a thousand legions, invites the nations to a 
Parliament of Peace. 

It is not surprising that a contrast so startling, an 
exchange of roles so unexpected, should at once arrest 
and bewilder the contemporary observer. We are 
still too near this great transformation scene ade- 
quately to realize its full significance. 

In order better to ascertain what might be the true 
meaning and vital import of the sudden apparition of 
an industrial Commonwealth as a conquering and an- 
nexing Imperial power, and the not less startling ap- 
parition of the Tsar of Russia in the garb of an angel 
of peace, I unde .took a rapid journey round Europe 
in the autumn of 1898, for the twofold purpose of 
ascertaining what the men of the Old World thought 
of the latest development of the ISTew World, and of 
discovering the true inwardness of the Tsar's Rescript, 
and the degree of welcome which it was likely to re- 
ceive from the peoples to whom it was addressed. 

I left London on September 15th for Brussels, and 
visited in rapid succession Liep;e, Paris, Berlin, St. 



PREFACE vii 

Petersburg, Moscow, Sebastopol and Yalta. At Yalta 
I had the honor of being twice received by the Tsar 
at Livadia. Keturning to Sebastopol, I took the 
steamer to Constantinople. The Orient Express 
brought me to Sofia, the capital of the Principality 
of Bulgaria, from whence I passed by Belgrade and 
Buda Pesth to Vienna. From Vienna, I went by 
Florence to Kome. On my way home I called at 
Cannes, Geneva and Berne, revisiting Paris on No- 
vember 26th, and reaching London on November 
28th. 

In one respect I was advantageously placed for hear- 
ing the views of trained and experienced observers. 
Most travellers consider themselves lucky if they can 
count upon the assistance of one Ambassador in each 
country which they visit. I, fortunately, can always 
call upon three. Born in Britain, and carrying on 
business in America, I found myself equally at home 
in the British and American Embassies; while Russia 
has so long been to me as a second country, that her 
Ambassadors were at least as helpful as those of the 
English-speaking nations. 

Besides these official representatives, I naturally 
found myself everywhere at home with the unofficial 
ambassadors of the public, who, under the unassuming 
guise of newspaper correspondents, do much more to 
form the opinion of the civilized world than all the 
ambassadors, ministers, and plenipotentiaries put to- 
gether. Without their aid, generously afforded me 
wherever I went, it would have been idle to attempt 



viii PREFACE 

such a rapid survey of the Continent as I venture to 
present in these pages. 

It would be the maddest presumption to pretend 
that in a rush round Europe, begun and completed in 
less than three months, anything can be obtained be- 
yond a series of general impressions, instantaneous 
photographs as it were, of the ever-shifting panorama 
of Continental politics. But on the two points to 
which I specially addressed myself it is perhaps not 
too much to hope that I may at least have succeeded 
in bringing into clear relief the salient features of 
the situation. Everywhere I asked what the men of 
the Old World thought of the newest New World that 
had suddenly revealed itself beyond the seas. Every- 
where also I asked what about the Peace Conference 
to which the world had been summoned by the Tsar. 
Incidentally, of course, I treat upon many other sub- 
jects, but the answers to these inquiries form the 
central essence of this book. 

I have drawn freely upon the letters and articles 
which in the course of my tour I contributed to the 
Daily News, the Associated Press of America, and the 
Review of Reviews. 

In conclusion, I may take the opportunity of an- 
nouncing that should this Annual meet with public 
appreciation, I hope to begin with the twentieth cen- 
tury a series of Annuals which would provide the gen- 
eral reader with a more or less comprehensive survey 
of the movements of the twelvemonth, written from 
a special standpoint after personal converse with the 



PREFACE ix 

sovereigns and statesmen, the diplomatists and jour- 
nalists of Europe. Of year-books of the statistical and 
dry-as-dust order there are enough and to spare. But 
of Annuals written to be read, and not merely to be 
referred to, I do not know of one. 

WILLIAM T. STEAD. 



Review of Reviews Office, 
Mowbray House, Norfolk Street, London, W.C. 
January 1st, 1899. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 
TOWARDS THE FEDERATION OF THE WORLD 



CHAP. 


PAGE 


I. U.S.A. and U.S.E. 


1 


II. Links and Barriers 


8 


III. The Capital of the Continent . 


25 


IV. The European Concert . 


38 


V. Europa 


54 



PART II 
ENGLAND IN 1S98 



I. The Fashoda Fever 
II. The Chinese Puzzle 

III. HlSPANIOLIZATION 



83 
115 
145 



PART III 

THE NORTHWESTERN STATES 



I. Belgium 

II. France 

III. Germany 

IV. The Minor States of Europe 



173 

188 
211 
226 



Xll 



CONTENTS 



PART IV 



RUSSIA OF THE RESCRIPT 

CHAP. 

I. At St. Petersburg in 1898 . 
II. The Peace Rescript 

III. Two Letters from St. Petersburg 

IV. M. Witte and His Work 
V. A Russian Cobden .... 

VI. The Ideas of Prince Ouchtomsky 
VII. The Emperor of Peace 



PAGE 

233 
252 
280 
297 
308 
319 
345 



PART V 



POSSIBLE OUTCOMES 



I. America and Russia 
II. Constantinople .... 

III. From the Capital of the Old World 

IV. What will the Outcome be ? 
V. A Pilgrimage of Peace 



395 
411 
428 
443 
459 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Tsar, Nicholas II 


. 


Frontispiece 


FACING 


PAGE 


Sir Horace Rumbold .10 


Lord Currie 


. 






10 


Sir Edmund Monson . 








10 


Sir Nicholas O'Connor 








10 


Mr. Saunders 


. 






20 


Mr. Dobson . 








20 


M. de Blowitz 








20 


Mr. Lavigno 








20 


The Reichstag Building, Berlin 






56 


The Reichsrath, Vienna .... 






56 


Queen Wilhelmina of Holland 






58 


The Late Queen of Denmark . 






58 


Queen Margharita of Italy 






58 


The Empress of Germany .... 






58 


Emperor William of Germany . 






66 


Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary 






66 


King Oscar of Sweden .... 






66 


The King of Servia 






66 


Count Goluchowski 






72 


Count Thun 






72 


Herr Von Kallay 






72 


The Heir Apparent of Austria-Hungary 






72 


M. Dupuy . 






84 


The Late President Faure 






84 


M. Hanotaux 






84 


M. Delcass£ ...... 






84 


Major Marchand ..... 






86 


Sir Edward Grey, M.P 






90 


Right Hon. John Morley, 


M.P. 






90 



xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

Right Hon. H. H. Asquith, M.P 90 

Right Hon. Sir Henry Fowler, M.P 90 

The Marquis of Salisbury 94 

The Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour 94 

The Rt. Hon. Lord Rosebery 94 

The Rt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain 94 

Sir Claude Macdonald 130 

Lord Curzon of Kedleston 130 

The Hon. W. P. Schreiner 130 

Lord Aberdeen 130 

Dezos Szilagy 153 

Baron Banffy 153 

M. Tisza 153 

Maurus Jokai 153 

M. Drumont 168 

M. Pressense 168 

M. Rochefort 168 

M. Georges Clemenceau 168 

Leopold, King of the Belgians 176 

M. Cremer 176 

The Crown Prince of Belgium 176 

The Queen of Belgium 176 

M. Beenaert 186 

M. Woeste 186 

Baron Von Eetvelde . . 186 

M. d'Alviella 186 

The Paris Bourse 188 

The Arc de Triomphe, Paris 188 

M. Brisson 190 

M. Brunetiere 190 

M. Jaures 190 

General Zurlinden 190 

Ex-Captain Dreyfus 208 

General Mercier 208 

Ex-Colonel Picquart 208 

Count Esterhazy 208 

Dr. Richter , 214 

Count Herbert Bismarck 214 

Herr Liebknecht 214 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv 

FACING 
PAGE 

Herr Bebel 214 

Prince Hohenlohe 222 

Dr. von Miquel 222 

Prince Henry op Prussia 222 

Sir F. Lascelles 222 

M. Sergitjs Witte 288 

Prince Kouropatkin 288 

M. Goremykin 288 

Prince Khilkoff 288 

M. de Nelidoff 324 

Count Muravieff 324 

Prince Ourosoff 324 

M. Zinovieff 324 

The Kremlin, Moscow 330 

The Tsarina 346 

On the Koad from Livadia to Sebastopol . . . 360 

Balaklava Town and Bay 360 

An Italian Representation of the Russian Eagles . 380 

M. Geveshoff 414 

Prince Ferdinand 414 

M. Zankoff 414 

Dr. Yankoloff 414 

Marquis di Rudjni 428 

King Humbert I. of Italy 428 

SlGNOR SONNINO 428 

General W. F. Dhaper 428 

The Palais de Justice, Brussels 430 

The Houses of Parliament, Rome : The King Leaving 

after Delivering his Speech from the Throve . 430 

Cardinal Jacobini 434 

Cardinal Parocchi 434 

Cardinal Rampolla 434 

Cardinal Steinhuber 434 

St. Peter's and the Vatican, Rome 440 

The Capitol, Rome ...,*,,. 440 



LIST OF MAPS 



FACING 
PAGE 

Map of Europe Showing Mr. Stead's Route vi 

The U.S.E. and the U.S.A 10 

Map of Europe Showing International Railways and 

Rivers 22 

Map Showing Relation of Port Arthur to Talien- 

wan — as the spithead ports are to southampton . 12(3 

Russian Manchuria 126 

Map of the Yang-tse-Kiang Valley .... 142 

The Rest of Europe inside Russia 252 

Map Showing Shrinkage of the Turkish Empire . . 412 

Turkey in Europe . 424 



THE UNITED STATES OF 
EUROPE 

PART I 

TOWARDS THE FEDERATION OF THE WORLD 

CHAPTEE I 

U.S.A. AND TT.S.E. 

" The United States of Europe " is a phrase natu- 
rally suggested by the United States of America. 
The latter enables the former to be at least thinkable. 
For a hundred years the world has been familiarized 
with the spectacle of a continually increasing number 
of independent and sovereign States living together 
in federal union. An experiment which has lasted 
so long, and which on the whole has borne such good 
fruits, naturally suggests the question whether a sim- 
ilar arrangement may not be the ultimate solution of 
many of the problems which perplex us in the Old 
"World. It is true that the United States of America 
have not survived their century without at least one 



2 THE UNITED Sl'ATES OF EUROPE 

bloody war. But although for four years the Repub- 
lic trod knee-deep in the winepress of the wrath of 
God, the Union emerged from that ordeal not merely 
no weaker, but infinitely stronger than before. The 
war that saved the Union was infinitely more impor- 
tant because it secured the unity of the American 
State, than even because it indirectly effected the 
emancipation of the negro. For it was the preserva- 
tion of the Union which enabled the Americans to 
escape the blighting curse of the Armed Peace against 
which Europe is at last beginning to rise in revolt. 
Thus the United States of Europe, the United States 
of America, and the Tsar's Rescript are all bound to- 
gether much more closely than might at first sight 
have been imagined. The United States of America, 
because they are united, have succeeded down to the 
present year in maintaining peace and order through- 
out their vast territories, and in building up one of 
the greatest of world powers, not merely without any 
resort to conscription, but even without any standing 
army at all. 

It will be objected that, down to the outbreak of 
the recent war, the Americans had what was called 
a standing army. What they had was 25,000 Federal 
gendarmes — a force not twice as large as the total 
number of the London Metropolitan Constabulary. 
Now a force of 25,000 men in a nation of seventy 
millions can hardly be regarded as other than the 
sceptre of sovereign power wielded by the Federal 
Executive, a sceptre rather than a sword, the symbol 



U.S.A. AND U.S.B. 3 

of sovereignty rather than the instrument by which 
it can be exerted. The collapse of the great Rebel- 
lion, the extinction of the attempt to found a slave 
Republic in the Southern States, enabled the Ameri- 
cans to escape the plague of hostile frontiers. Being 
united in a fraternal and federal Republic, -they have 
had no occasion to build fortresses or to create forti- 
fied camps, nor have they, even in their nightmares, 
dreamed of subjecting the whole of their able-bodied 
youth to the enforced slavery of compulsory military 
service. Had the Confederacy triumphed, all this 
would have been altered, and two rival republics would 
have confronted each other north and south of a geo- 
graphical line which would have bristled with bay- 
onets, and frowned with cannon. The secret of their 
deliverance from this plague of the Old World must 
lie found in the preservation of their Union. 

It is therefore natural, when the young War Lord of 
the greatest of European armies issued his memorable 
indictment of the armed system of the Old World, 
that Europeans should turn their eyes with wistful 
longing to the continent which has hitherto been im- 
mune to militarism, and which has exhibited to the 
world the greatest example of disarmament on record. 
]STor is it surprising, perceiving the open secret of the 
way in which the Americans have escaped the worst 
forms of the malady which is eating out the vitals of 
the modern State, that dwellers in the Old World 
should begin to ask themselves anxiously whether or 
not the ultimate solution of the problem which will 



4 TEE UNITED STATE 8 OF EUROPE 

be considered by the Peace Conference is to be found 
in the realization of the conception which has hitherto 
been confined to idealists like Victor Hugo or seers like 
Mazzini. In other words, the summoning of the Par- 
liament of Peace brings us within sight, if not within 
hailing distance, of the recognition of the United 
States of Europe. 

Such at least was the idea which, in the autumn of 
1898, led me to undertake for the first time a tour of 
the new Continental Comnionwearth in posse, with 
the twofold object — first, of seeing by personal experi- 
ence how far the nations and states were already for 
practical purposes welded into one; and secondly, dis- 
covering how far public opinion in the various capitals 
was prepared to welcome the next step which it was 
proposed to take in the direction of settled peace. 

On the day bef ore I started from London, Mr. ISTeaf , 
the European editor of the Associated Press — that 
organization which, from its hold on the newspapers 
of the United States, may be regarded as the keeper 
of the ear of Uncle Sam — asked me whether I would 
write him a letter from each of the capitals I visited, 
describing what the Old "World thought of the newest 
evolution of the ]STew World — the sudden flaming up 
of American enthusiasm on behalf of the victims of 
Spanish oppression, and the consequent expansion of 
the boundaries of the American Commonwealth. 
Closely allied with this evolution of American Im- 
perialism was the apparition of the United States as an 
active competitor in the neutral markets of the world. 



U.S.A. AND U.S.E. 5 

I accepted the commission, and the contents of this 
volume are necessarily more or less influenced by the 
double task to which I addressed myself. At the 
same time I venture to hope that the very complexity 
of the study will add somewhat to the interest of the 
book. 

From one point of view Europe contemplates the 
United States of America as having realized the ideal 
towards which the Rescript of the Tsar appears ulti- 
mately to point. On the other hand, Europe perceives 
the United States devoting themselves to a war of 
liberation, which, according to the familiar precedent, 
appeared to develop into a war of conquest; while 
simultaneously the American producer, already su- 
preme in the supply of produce of the soil, suddenly 
reveals himself as a formidable rival in all manner 
of manufactured goods. This last factor in the prob- 
lem, although regarded (as Count Goluchowsky pub- 
licly declared) with consternation and alarm, counts 
nevertheless as a very valuable element in the forces 
making for peace and disarmament. It brings home 
to the average man the enormous advantages in in- 
dustrial competition which are enjoyed by a nation 
that is free to devote the whole of its inventive capacity 
to the arts of production, and to pass the whole of its 
youth into the factory and the mill, without previously 
taking tithe of their years in the heavy corvee of the 
barracks. Thus at the same time that the United 
States of America afford the disunited States of 
Europe the spectacle of a great nation, orderly and 



6 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

free, which has grown up to greatness without any 
more than a mere symbol of an army, the menacing 
ascendancy of the American producer in the markets 
of the world tends to drive the lesson home that the 
ways of militarism are the ways of death. In the 
long run it may be found that the phenomenal increase 
of American exports in the year 1898 may do more to 
induce the acceptance of the Russian Emperor's pro- 
posals than all the appeals of the moralists and all the 
arguments of the philanthropists. 

" This is the way : walk ye in it," is the word uttered 
from the Imperial throne of Muscovy, while from 
across the Atlantic comes as a deep response — " And 
if ye do not walk in it, ye will assuredly die." Die — 
not necessarily by the sword, but by the absolute in- 
ability of nations, weighed down with the ever-increas- 
ing burden of modern armaments, to compete with 
their disencumbered rivals. England, Erance, Ger- 
many and Italy have been desperately struggling for 
some years past to obtain possession of unopened mar- 
kets. They have spent millions like water in order 
to secure prior rights over great expanses of African 
and Asiatic territory which are only prospective mar- 
kets at the best; and all the while they have ignored 
the fact that they are in imminent danger of losing 
control of their own market, and that while they may 
gain a more or less doubtful chance of a turnover of 
hundreds of thousands in distant continents, the in- 
crease of American exports to the European market is 
to be reckoned every year by millions. This economic 



U.S.A. AND U.8.E. 7 

portent, to which for the moment the public turns a 
blind eye, will every day more and more assert itself, 
and more and more tend to compel the Old World to 
adopt the New World conditions, or to give up the 
struggle. What are the New World conditions? 
They are these — all the States dwell together in Fede- 
ral Union, without hostile frontiers and without stand- 
ing armies, and with a greater expenditure upon edu- 
cation than upon armaments. There are other factors 
in the problem, no doubt; these are the chief. We 
in the Old World cannot hope to rival the vast re- 
sources of a continent which even now is but partially 
developed; but the fact that we are naturally handi- 
capped in competing with the virgin resources of the 
New World renders it all the more necessary that we 
should disembarrass ourselves of all the artificial im- 
pediments which render it difficult, not to say impos- 
sible, for us to hold our own in the struggle for exist- 
ence in the markets of the world. The United States 
of Europe, therefore, however remote it may appear 
to those who look merely at the surface of things, may 
be much nearer than even the most sanguine amongst 
us venture at present to hope. 



CHAPTEE II 



LINKS AND BARRIERS 



A tour round Europe seemed to me the most natu- 
ral way of bringing forcibly to my mind a sense of 
the factors which impede this natural development. 
The problem can be approached from many points 
of view, and studied in many ways; but I elected 
to choose the simple method of going round Europe to 
see places and things for myself at first hand, and to 
form some kind of an idea as to what were the forces 
making for union, and what were those which tended 
to make the adoption of the federal principle difficult 
or impossible. 

To begin with, it is impossible not to be impressed 
with the contrast between Europe to-day and Europe 
a few centuries ago. Five hundred years ago it would 
have been practically impossible for me to have made 
the circular tour from which I have just returned. In 
the first place, the countries through which I passed 
would not have been at peace one with the other; in 
the second place, I should have had great difficulty in 
obtaining permission to cross many frontiers, and 
thirdly, I should in some countries have been in im- 
minent danger of losing my life, or at least my liberty. 



LINES AND BARRIERS 9 

Last year Europe was in profound peace. There was 
no difficulty whatever in crossing any frontier, nor 
did I experience any more risk to life or liberty in 
travelling through the Continent than I should have 
done in making a tour round Kent, or passing from 
Sew York to San Francisco. For travelling purposes 
Europe is already a commonwealth. But there are 
two relics of barbarism still remaining which compel 
the wayfaring man to admit the existence of inde- 
pendent, rival, or hostile states. The first is common 
to all countries; the second is confined to one or two. 
The first is a custom-house. But for the pestilent 
nuisance of the douane, the tourist could go from the 
North Cape to Gibraltar, from Cape Finisterre to 
Transylvania, without ever being aware that he was 
passing from one jurisdiction to another. The uni- 
forms of the police and of the soldiery differ somewhat, 
but so also do the features of the landscape. Person- 
ally he would experience no more inconvenience in 
passing from France to Germany or from Belgium to 
Holland, than he would in passing from New York 
into Pennsylvania, or from Illinois into Minnesota. 
The second obstacle which stands in the way of this 
continental unity is the maintenance in the two coun- 
tries of Russia and the Ottoman Empire of the system 
of the passport. This passport — a nuisance at one 
time almost universal — has gradually retreated east- 
wards, until now no one ever asks to look at your pass- 
port outside Russia and Turkey. It is not very pleas- 
ant for a Russian or a friend of Russia to have to 



10 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

bracket the two countries together; but in this matter 
of passports they are much of a muchness, Russia per- 
haps being even the worse of the two. Without a 
passport duly vised by Russian consular authorities, 
no foreigner can pass into the Russian Empire. With- 
out that passport duly surrendered to the police at 
each town where he arrives, no foreigner can take up 
his abode in Russia. The same thing is true to a less 
extent in Turkey. These two countries, therefore, 
are outside the pale of passportless civilization. They 
belong to the States which, for domestic or other rea- 
sons, dare not make their territories free to mankind 
to come and to go. The United States of Europe, 
therefore, is as the United States of America in three 
parts of its surface, so far as travelling is concerned, 
plus the irritating reminder by the custom-house of 
the existence of frontiers; while over the rest of its 
surface it is as the United States of America, plus the 
custom-house and the passport. 

The great ideal of international freedom and union 
is to be found in the post-office. Wherever you see 
the red pillar-box, there you see a dumb prophet of 
the Millennium. The moment the stamped missive 
enters its ever open portal it becomes a citizen of the 
universe, free from all custom houses, and protected, 
by virtue of the Queen's head which it carries, in all 
lands, irrespective of differences of nationality, law 
and religion. The International Postal Union is the 
avant-courier or John the Baptist of the Kingdom of 
Heaven, in which all frontiers would disappear and 





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THE U.S.E. AND THE U.S.A. 



LINKS AND BARRIERS 11 

all mankind would be made free of the planet in which 
they dwell. Often on my journey I witnessed, with 
a feeling of satisfaction not untinged with envy, the 
way in which the mail-bags were carried across the 
frontier without word or question, while we luckless 
ones, who were not franked with a postage stamp, had 
to laboriously carry our luggage to the Zollhaus and 
wait until the custom-house official had made a more 
or less perfunctory examination of our belongings. It 
is true that the customs examination was in most cases 
exceedingly formal; in some, as in Switzerland, and 
in coming back to England, it was the merest form. 
But this only increases your irritation at the exasperat- 
ing worry and delay occasioned by a formality so mani- 
festly futile. How often did I sigh for the adoption 
of Sir Algernon West's sensible proposal, by which 
all the nuisance of custom-house examination was 
to be done away with — at least between England and 
France. But although it is nearly two years since 
he made his excellent suggestion, nothing seems as yet 
to have come of it. 

The only other institution in Europe which can be 
compared to the post-office for the success with which 
it has triumphed over the limitations of frontiers and 
the restrictions imposed by short-sighted governments 
upon the free movement of men and things, is that 
marvellous agency by which it is possible for the trav- 
eller, with the aid of Circular Notes, to draw whatever 
money he requires wherever he may be. I never used 
to cash my Circular Notes without feeling a dumb 



12 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

wonder at the marvellous ingenuity of man and the 
skill with which he is able to do all things, if only 
" there is money in it." Instead of having to carry 
round with me a pocketful of gold, I simply took in 
my pocket-book a bundle of Circular Notes, utterly 
valueless to any one who had not got the circular 
which must be produced whenever they w T ere cashed. 
Armed with these bits of paper, I found in every 
capital, one, or two, or sometimes three financial in- 
stitutions which were ready at a moment's notice to 
pay me down as much money as the Circular Notes 
represented, without any deduction or trouble what- 
ever. You give no notice, but simply walk into the 
office, announce that you want so much money, and 
present notes for the amount required. In five or 
ten minutes the money is handed to you, calculated 
carefully at the current rate of exchange of the day, 
and you depart, feeling impressed with the perfection 
of the organization of credit by which at a thousand 
different points in your journey, not in Europe only, 
but in other continents, you can convert a bit of paper, 
valueless to any one else, into gold, by producing it 
and the corresponding circular in any of the agencies 
in connection with the central office. If, after the 
fashion of Orientals, you converted your cash into 
precious stones, you would only be allowed to enter 
the country after having paid tax and toll to the cus- 
tom-house; but thanks to the Circular Note you can 
snap your fingers at this institution, and cash your 
notes in a kingdom where no custom-house officer can 




Photograph by Be Laviete?-, The Hagut 
SIR HORACE RUMBOLD 
Vienna 



Elliott and Fry 
LORD CURRIE 
Rome 




Elliott and Fry Elliott and Fry 

SIR EDMUND MONSON SIR NICHOLAS O'CONNOR 

Paris Constantinople 

LEADING BRITISH AMBASSADORS ON THE CONTINENT 



LIXKS AND BARRIERS 13 

interfere. The Circular Note is the nearest approach 
to an international currency which we have arrived at, 
for unlike coins of the realm, Circular Notes are con- 
vertible in every land and at the full current rate of 
exchange. 

I was exceedingly fortunate in being saved the diffi- 
culties of the two worst custom-houses through which 
I had to pass. I had a laissez-passer from the Russian 
Embassy, which cleared me from all the inquisition 
at Wirballen. Thanks to the timely kindness of M. 
Kroupensky, who has now succeeded ]\I. Pavloff at 
Pekin, I was able to evade the Turkish custom-house 
altogether, as I landed from the Sebastopol steamer 
in the Russian guard-boat. Only once was there a 
question of paying as much as a single penny on my 
luggage. I had bought a Bulgarian peasant dress for 
my daughter, and narrowly escaped having to pay 
duty upon it as wearing apparel not for my own use, 
when I crossed the frontier from Servia into Hungary; 
but the custom-house officer was merciful, although 
he mildly lamented that I had not sent it through 
under seal. But from first to last, in a tour round 
an oval which had London and Sebastopol as its two 
extreme points, I had much less inconvenience from 
the custom house than what one hundred years ago I 
should have experienced in passing from Rotterdam 
to Vienna. It may be difficult to see how the custom- 
house is to be finally abolished, but already its incon- 
veniences are minimized; and if the douane does not 
bear in its visage the evidence of galloping consump- 



14 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

tion, it seems to be in a decline which, under the 
impulse of modern ideas, will probably be accelerated. 

As for passports, that is a more difficult question. 
Certainly in Turkey and in the states, such as Servia 
and Bulgaria, which have been carved out of the ruins 
of the Ottoman Empire, the utility of the passport is 
not very obvious. Whether it can be dispensed with 
in Russia is a matter upon which a non-Russian is not 
competent to express an opinion. The utility of the 
passport from the point of view of keeping out danger- 
ous characters or inconvenient visitors is not very 
obvious to the stranger, who soon discovers that the 
people whom it is sought to keep out are always those 
who have their passports in the most splendid order. 
Of course there is a great deal to be said in favor of 
a system by which no person can move a step without 
an authentic document duly certifying who he is, and 
where he comes from, and all about him; but in prac- 
tice the passport system falls far short of this ideal. 
Those persons who have least reputation have the most 
passports, and the less regular a man may be in his 
life, the more scrupulous he is that there shall be no 
complaint as to the regularity of his official papers. 
I am not, however, either defending or complaining 
of what exists. I am only endeavoring to explain 
what are those things which differentiate the United 
States of Europe from the United States of America. 

When we leave those elements Avhich tend to dis- 
union and come to consider those which tend to bring 
about the formation of the United States of Europe, 



LINKS AND BARRIERS 15 

it will be a surprise to some that the institution of 
monarchy holds a high place. We are so much under 
the influence of the poetry and political writing of 
generations when wars were common, that it is diffi- 
cult for us to understand that the world has changed 
since then. The poetry of the beginning of the cen- 
tury has as its note the assumption that the wars which 
afflicted mankind were the direct product of the rapa- 
city of monarchs. The " monarch-murdered soldier " 
was an excellent phrase, which has been carried down 
for generations. When Byron describes the innocent 
mirth of a Spanish festival, he cannot refrain from 
exclaiming: — 

" Oh, monarchs ! could ye taste the mirth ye mar, 
Not in the toils of glory would ye sweat, 
The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and man be happy yet. " 

That superstition as to the war-making influence of 
monarchy dies hard; but if we look at things as they 
are, there is very little room for continuing to cherish 
the delusion that blinds us to the real sources of the 
perils which menace the peace of the world. Of this I 
was continually being reminded in my journey round 
Europe. 

The day I arrived at Brussels was the day on which 
the memorial mass was being said for the Empress- 
Queen, Elizabeth of Austria-Hungary. Her death by 
the knife of the assassin placed one-half of Europe in 
mourning; and the death of the Queen of Denmark, 
which occurred immediately afterwards, was even 



16 THE Ills! IT ED STATES OF EUROPE 

more widely felt. The death of " the grandmamma 
of Europe,'' as she was familiarly called, was incident- 
ally the cause of delaying the publication of this 
[\ Christmas Annual " until the month of March. Her 
daughter, the Dowager Empress of Eussia, wished to 
have her son, the Emperor Nicholas, at the funeral. 
This compelled him to leave Livadia, cross Eussia, and 
repair to Copenhagen, where he remained for a fort- 
night. My interview was therefore postponed until 
his return. These are only trifles, but they serve as 
reminders of the closeness of the family tie which 
unites one country with the other. Our own royal 
family has ramifications which cover Europe. The 
Emperor of Eussia and the Emperor of Germany are 
both nephews of the Prince of Wales, whose brother- 
in-law is the King of Greece, and whose son-in-law 
will be King of Eoumania. 

If the ultimate ideal of Europe is to become one 
family without any barriers separating one from the 
other — a family, all the members of which are famil- 
iar enough to be interested in each other's affairs, to 
attend each other's weddings, to go into mourning for 
each other's deaths — then Eoyalty has attained what 
the rest of mankind will only attain after some cen- 
turies. The monarchical families form a group which, 
from a physical and physiological point of view, is 
even too closely united. Marrying in-and-in has con- 
sequences which are not by any means calculated to 
contribute to the robustness or to the intellectual vigor 
of the stock. Indeed, one eminent man, whom I 



LINKS AND BARRIERS 17 

heard at Rome, is devoting no end of time and atten- 
tion to a demonstration of the thesis that all dynasties 
are dying out, and must die ont by the nature of things 
and by the law of the universe. It may be so, but the 
process is a slow one, and they will not perish before 
they have familiarized mankind with the spectacle of 
an international family group, speaking practically 
a common language, having common interests, and 
capable of understanding each other from the in- 
side. 

Sign or Sonnino, with whom I had a long, interesting- 
conversation at Rome, told me that he considered the 
coming century would be a monarchical century, and 
that that monarchical principle, which had been some- 
what depressed since the clays of the French Revolu- 
tion, was destined to be re-vindicated in the years that 
are to come. However that may be, there is no doubt 
that our Queen by the vigor of her intellect, the keen- 
ness of the interest which she has taken in public af- 
fairs, the marvellous memory with which she has been 
blessed, and her strong sense of the obligations of 
family relationship, has done much to reestablish the 
monarchical idea. Her correspondence with the mem- 
bers of the royal caste or royal family throughout 
Europe is, and has always been, carefully kept up. 
Hence, all monarchical States have at their head a 
semi-cosmopolitan European family, capable of acting 
as a telephonic system for the Continent. 

France, which is outside this royal ring, may have 
her compensations elsewhere, but she certainly suffers 
2 



18 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

deprivations in the lack of continuity of tradition, and 
of the permanence of persons who direct her policy. 
The uneasy consciousness of this is one of the causes, 
when the compensating advantages of the Republic 
seem to fade away, which leads to the perpetual re- 
newal of the talk of Restoration, even after thirty 
years of the third Republic. 

Whether we regard the recrudescence of monarchy 
as a symptom of reaction or as a sign of progress, there 
is no doubt as to its existence. What we have to do 
is to make the most of it and to recognize in what way 
it makes for progress. 

After Royalty, it is probable that the most potent 
things tending to make Europeans conscious of the 
unity of the Continental Commonwealth are the tele- 
graphic agencies, such as Renter's, the Havas, and 
others, which, chiefly through the daily papers, con- 
tinually distribute the political and social gossip of the 
Continent among the nations. Let no one overlook 
the value of gossip in the formation of the ties which 
bind men together. Take away family gossip, and 
the family would in most cases become a mere skele- 
ton, without flesh, blood or nervous system. It is by 
the kindly gossip of the fireside, in which every one 
talks about everybody else, that the sense of family 
union is created and preserved. The chatterers of the 
telegraph who, in every capital, carefully extract the 
kernel of grain from the bushel of chaff, and telegraph 
all round the Continent such items of intelligence as 
may be of general interest, contribute probably the 



LINKS AND BARRIERS 19 

most constantly potent influence that can be discov- 
ered in the growth of that common sentiment which 
is the precursor of common action in support of the 
Commonwealth. Great and ubiquitous is the tele- 
graphic agency. Our fathers used to think that the 
newspaper represented the highest organized intelli- 
gence, seeking day and night for information with 
which to feed its ever hungry press. But no news* 
paper, not even the Times itself, can bear comparison 
with the telegraphic agencies, such as ."Renter's, the 
Havas, and the Associated Press, for the collection and 
distribution of intelligence. Every great newspaper 
is more than a collector of news: it is always a com- 
mentator, and usually a preacher of its own ideas. A 
telegraphic agency is neither of these things, and dis- 
seminates news only. It is creedless alike in politics 
and in religion. Its sole duty is to see the nuggetty 
fact in the amount of dross brought to surface by the 
illimitable labor of the human race, and promptly to 
put that nuggetty fact into general circulation. 
Hence, no river can burst its dam in Northern Italy, 
or in remoter Roumania, and sweep away any appre- 
ciable number of the human race to a watery death, 
but the fact is served up the next morning at all the 
breakfast tables of the Continent. And here again 
the Royalties, in addition to the service which they 
render to unity by the creation of a family that is prac- 
tically co-extensive with the Continent, are hardly less 
useful in the supply of that personal gossip which is 
always most appreciated by the average man and 



20 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

woman. The birth and the death, the betrothal and 
the marriage, the accident, and even the scandals of 
the Koyal caste, are all food for gossip; and in this 
fashion the telegraph wire and the Koyal and Im- 
perial dynasties act and react upon each other. The 
King of Lillipnt cannot sprain his ankle without the 
fact being a subject for comment and of interest 
throughout the whole Continental area. A thousand 
greater men than lie might break their necks with- 
out the fact being considered of sufficient interest 
to be chronicled. Therein consists the superior 
utility of the Kingdom of Lilliput. Thrones are but 
pedestals on which human beings stand visibly above 
the crowd, and therefore objects of more general 
human interest than any of the undistinguished mass 
below. 

The railway and the telegraph are both becoming 
more and more international institutions. There are 
still, no doubt, shreds of nationalism left in the man- 
agement of the telegraphs of the world, but on the 
whole they tend more and more to become a common 
nerve-centre of the whole human race. But the rail- 
way and telegraph are subjects which must be dealt 
with in a separate chapter. 

There is a steady approximation to unity through- 
out the Continent. We have not yet a European coin- 
age, but throughout the Latin countries there is an 
international currency, and sooner or later Europe will 
have a common currency. 

The railways and the telegraphs are inventions of 




W. and D. Downey 
MR. SAUNDERS 

Berlin 



E. Westly, Sf. Petersburg 
MR. DOBSON 
St. Petersburg 





Bary, Paris M. Lom?ntz, London 

M. DE BLOWITZ MR. LAVIGNO 

Paris Vienna 

THE TIMES' "OWN" CORRESPONDENTS IX EUROPE. 



LINKS AND BARRIERS 21 

this century, and they have, therefore, adapted them- 
selves, almost from the outset, to the complex circum- 
stances of their environment. 

It is different with the great rivers of Europe, which 
were international highways long before Watt and 
Stephenson taught steam to do the haulage of the 
world, or electricians harnessed the lightning as the 
Hermes of the modern Olympus. All the traffic upon 
such great arterial waterways of the Continent as the 
Rhine and the Danube has long been subject to in- 
ternational control and regulation. At this point we 
reach a further stage in the evolution of the United 
States of Europe. In the case of the railways it may 
be regarded to a great extent as unconscious, inasmuch 
as the International Railway Bureau has no direct con- 
nection with the Foreign Offices of the world. It is 
different with the Riverain Commissions. The navi- 
gation of the Danube is indeed one of the most inter- 
esting illustrations of the way in which the European 
Powers modify the machinery of their joint action for 
the purpose of securing efficiency of working. At the 
outset, the River Danube was under the control of 
the six great Powers and Turkey. But the practical 
management of the river now is intrusted to a com- 
mission of the Riverain States, plus one delegate from 
the great Powers. That is to say, the International 
Danube is managed by a committee of five, one dele- 
gate being appointed for six months by each of the 
great Powers in turn, while there are four permanent 
delegates appointed by the Riverain States of Austria, 



22 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUBOPE 

Bulgaria, Roumania and Servia. This is interesting 
in more ways than one, because it establishes the prin- 
ciple of the appointment of a European delegate on 
the principle of rotation. Each representative of the 
great Powers only holds his seat for six months, so that 
each great Power has only one turn in three years. 
The European delegate, however, although represent- 
ing his own State, is in reality the representative of 
the United States of Europe, and in that capacity de- 
fends the general interest, in case it should be attacked, 
in the interest of the Riverain States. 

Another principle which it embodies is that a great 
Power when it happens to have local interest is not 
debarred from having two representatives when its 
turn conies round to appoint a general delegate. 
Austria, for instance, has its permanent delegate, and 
once in three years it has a general representative as 
one of the Committee of the great Powers in the affairs 
of Europe. The third principle, we shall see, bears 
directly upon the question of the status of Bulgaria. 
According to the Treaty of Berlin, Bulgaria is part of 
the Ottoman Empire. It is a tributary State. Strictly 
speaking, it is the Sultan, and not the Prince of Bul- 
garia, who should nominate the delegate on the Danu- 
bian Commission, who represents the Riverain Prin- 
cipality. The Sultan, however, can only appoint a 
general delegate as one of the signatories of the Treaty 
of Berlin, while the right of Bulgaria to appoint its 
permanent representative on the Riverain Commission 
is recognized. Acting on this precedent, we shall find 



3oC\ 

•1 h 





LINKS AND BARRIERS 23 

that Bulgaria will expect to be represented at the 
Peace Conference, although it would, I believe, be 
the first occasion at which a tributary Principality 
has claimed to sit at the council-board with its own 
suzerain. 

From the regulation of international rivers on the 
Continent it is but a short step to the European Con- 
cert, which primarily exists for the safeguarding of 
that great international waterway known as the Bos- 
phorus and the Dardanelles. Reduced to its essence, 
this, and very little else but this, is the basis of the 
Concert of the Powers formally established by the 
Treaty of Paris in 18 5 G, and asserted anew at the 
Berlin Congress of 1878. Behind all the fine prin- 
ciples which are invoked in the diplomatic instruments 
governing the complex congeries of problems known 
as the Eastern Question, the bedrock of the whole, the 
kernel, the central essence, is this supreme question 
as to the international regulation of the waterways 
connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Be- 
cause the Turk squats astride of both sides of these 
famous Straits, the Turk has been a European interest 
for at least a century. He is no longer regarded as 
an exclusively British interest, but his charmed life 
is due to the fact that he is keeper of the Dardanelles 
and the Bosphorus, and in that capacity he possesses 
the merit of utility, which in the eye of many is more 
efficacious than charity in covering a multitude of 
sins. In order to deal with a question of such inter- 
national interest, international action was necessary. 



24 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Hence the intervention of the principle of the Euro- 
pean Concert, that great and fertile principle which, 
more than anything else, holds within it the promise 
and potency of every form of international develop- 
ment. 



CHAPTER III 

THE CAPITAL OF THE CONTINENT 

On returning from Rome, at one time the capital of 
the world, and still the capital of that section of the 
Christian Church which recognizes in the Roman 
Bishop the successor of St. Peter, I made a detour in 
order to visit Berne, which is the nearest approxima- 
tion there is in Europe to a common capital. At Berne 
it was my good fortune to make the acquaintance of 
M. Numa Droz, the head of the International Railway 
Bureau, which is one of four international administra- 
tions that have their seats in the federal capital of 
Switzerland. M. I\ T uma Droz is a very remarkable 
man, and I met no one in my tour whose conversation 
was at once so intelligent, so reasonable, and so hope- 
ful. A man still in the prime of life, he has served 
his country in almost every capacity, from the Presi- 
dent of the Republic downwards. When the Euro- 
pean Powers were puzzled as to the best international 
representative to nominate for the Governorship of 
Crete, their choice fell upon M. Droz, and afterwards, 
when the task of restoring order was entrusted to 
Prince George, it was again to M. E"uma Droz that 
they turned when they wished to provide a typical, 



20 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

sensible, trustworthy European to hold the balance 
even between the various interests in the island. A 
man of judicial temperament, with great administra- 
tive experience, M. jNTuma Droz is at once a patriotic 
Swiss and a broad-minded citizen of the world. 
Should he be selected as the representative of Switzer- 
land at the Conference of Peace, there will be no dele- 
gate from any of the great Powers who will command 
greater respect or whose judgment will carry greater 
weight. 

In February last year M. Droz read a paper at a 
conference in Zurich, in which he described the organ- 
ization and the work of the international bureaus at 
Berne. It is one of the most interesting and sugges- 
tive papers that I came across in my run round Europe. 
In it he described with admirable perspicacity and 
brevity the rapid growth of these central bureaus, 
which are to the United States of Europe like the ice- 
crystals which form on the surface of the water before 
the cold is sufficiently intense to freeze the whole sur- 
face into one solid sheet. These international bureaus 
represent the evolution of what may be called the Con- 
tinental ganglia of nerve centres, and each of them 
may be regarded as an embodied prophecy of the com- 
ing of the United States of Europe. And not only 
the United States of Europe, but the United States of 
the World. Eor the area which three of those admin- 
istrations represent is far wider than that of any single 
continent. As M. Droz said, there is no doubt that 
\he formation of these international bureaus is one of 



TEE CAPITAL OF TEE CONTINENT 27 

the most interesting and hopeful signs of our epoch — 
that these international organizations have been cre- 
ated by the Governments in order to serve the ends 
of civilization. As a Switzer, M. Droz is naturally 
proud of the fact that four of these should have their 
head in the capital of his own country. There are 
other bureaus which have their seats elsewhere. For 
instance, the International Bureau of Metrical 
Weights and Measures is domiciled in Paris. The 
Bureau Geodesique is seated at Berlin, while at Brus- 
sels there are two international bureaus, one which 
arranges for the publication of the customs tariffs of 
all nations, and the other is concerned with the sup- 
pression of the slave-trade. But at Berne they glory 
in the possession of four, as many as are to be 
found in all the rest of the world put together. 
These are the bureaus of the International Postal 
Union, the Telegraphic Union, the Union of Inter- 
national Railways, and that which looks after Patents, 
Copyrights and Trade-marks, which are summed 
together under the common title of " Intellectual 
Property." 

When we were children, we used to hear much con- 
cerning " Commerce, the white-winged peace-maker," 
and have only, after a series of disillusions, wakened 
to the fact that in the present day commerce has be- 
come the pretext, if not the cause, for most of our 
international quarrels. It is, therefore, with a pleas- 
ant surprise, such as one feels when discovering that 
a fairy-tale of the nursery had been but a poetic em- 



28 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

bodiment of a scientific fact, that we come upon the 
following passage in M. Droz's paper : — 

It is the chief glory of commerce to be the principal agent 
in drawing nations together. It is of no use to try to isolate 
them by making the walls of the custom-house as thick and 
as high as possible; trade has an expansive force and a 
subtle pervasiveness so great that in the end it always 
succeeds in overcoming or overthrowing these obstacles. 
It is useless to try to keep up with jealous and also legiti- 
mate solicitude the national spirit of each people; commerce 
knows how to combine the great interests which they have 
in common, thanks to which all nations only form one 
universal family. As far as trade is concerned, diversity of 
languages is no barrier, as they can be learned; distance is 
annihilated, or, at least, reduced to its narrowest limits. 
For the most part, trade asks little from the State, as it is 
accustomed to settle its own difficulties in its own way, 
and the State rather hinders it in its movements. But there 
are two things which it needs most certainly and most im- 
peratively: one is rapidity and exactitude in its relations, 
the other is legal security. 

Of these various bureaus, now located in what may 
be regarded as the incipient capital of the Continent, 
the first, which was established in 1865, related to 
telegraphs. The second was the Postal Union, which 
was established in 1874; while the bureau dealing with 
trade-marks and patents was founded in 1883, and 
its function was extended to deal with copyrights in 
1886. The International Railway Bureau, over which 
M. Droz presides, was the latest born of all, having 
only come into existence in 1890. The motive which 
led to the foundation of these bureaus was in all cases 
the same. Telegraphs, post-offices and railways had 



THE CAPITAL OF THE CONTINENT 29 

relations with each other before they established a 
common centre to act both as a clearing-house and as 
a supreme court of appeal for the settlement of their 
various differences, just in the same way as the present 
governments of Europe have relations with each 
other. But before the conventions establishing the 
bureaus, these relations created no end of friction and 
caused almost as many questions as those which at 
present exist between neighboring States in the polit- 
ical sphere. M. Droz says: — 

Letters used to pass from one administration to another, 
by each of which a tax was imposed, and this caused ex- 
pense and delay. It was the same with telegraphic mes- 
sages. There was no international protection for inventors, 
proprietors of trade-marks, or authors. And with regard 
to railway transport, new regulations were found at every 
frontier, the times of delivery were not the same, indem- 
nities in case of loss or damage depended on the caprice of 
officials; it was impossible to discover who was in fault, 
or against whom a charge could be made. It was the most 
utter juridical confusion. 

It is the difficulties of the world which pave the way 
for the solutions of its problems. But for our difficul- 
ties we should make no progress — a salutary doctrine 
which is a constant consolation to the reformer. These 
bureaus were not established without considerable 
misgivings, and even now, although they have func- 
tioned and functioned well for years, it is necessary for 
them to be very prudent, since the respective adminis- 
trations of the various States are as jealous of their 
autonomy and as prompt to resent any infringement 



30 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

of their sovereignty as if they were high contracting 
parties dealing with territorial or political rights. 
Nevertheless, they have managed in spite of those 
jealousies and misgivings to do very good work — do 
it so quietly that hardly any one knows it is being 
done at all. As all these bureaus are founded upon 
the same general principle, it is reasonable to expect 
that the United States of Europe will probably follow 
the same road in the evolution of the Continental 
organization. M. Droz says : — 

All the common features of these various Unions depend 
upon agreements, the wording of which is decided at con- 
ferences, partly technical and partly diplomatic, which meet 
from time to time to inquire into the changes and improve- 
ments which can be introduced into the general regulations. 
All of them, with the exception of that which has to do with 
railway transport, are concluded for an unlimited period, 
and the States can accede to them or withdraw at any 
time, by a simple declaration made to the Swiss Federal 
Council. With regard to the railways, on the contrary, the 
agreement is renewable by each State every three years, and 
the States may be consulted about the adhesion of new mem- 
bers. This last point is very important considering the in- 
terests which are at stake. It would not be desirable to have 
in the Union railways which are either insolvent, or belong- 
to countries whose law and whose law courts did not offer 
the most complete security. 

The cost of these international offices is very small. 
In 1896 the cost of the four was altogether only 370,- 
000 francs, or, let us say, £15,000, a sum which is 
divided proportionately among the various States. In 
the railways, for instance, the charge is based upon the 
number of kilometers under the control of the Con- 



THE CAPITAL OF THE CONTINENT 31 

vention. The importance and the nature of the func- 
tions of these international bureaus, which may be 
regarded as avant-couriers of the United States of 
Eo rope that is to come, may best be studied by briefly 
describing each of them with some detail. 

Beginning with the Telegraphic Bureau, M. Droz 
says : — 

The working agreement applies to forty-six countries, 
containing 846 millions of inhabitants. It requires that 
States should have a sufficient number of direct telegraphic 
lines, for international telegraphy; it recognizes the right of 
every person to make use of them; it guarantees the secrecy 
of all communications; it fixes the order of priority for the 
dispatch of telegrams, with regard to their nature; it 
authorizes the sending of messages in cipher; it settles a 
universal charge, which is based, for European countries, 
on groups of three, ten, or fifty words, and for lands beyond 
the ocean, on the single word; it accepts the franc as the 
unit of coinage; it undertakes to send reply-paid and regis- 
tered telegrams. 

The bureau has many duties. Its first task is to 
collect, to coordinate and to publish information of 
every kind relating to international telegraphy. In 
discharging this duty, it publishes a general map of 
all the great telegraphic communications of the world, 
and other maps more detailed, one for Europe and the 
other for the rest of the world outside of Europe. It 
publishes a telegraphic journal, and carefully edits and 
reedits a list of the telegraph stations of the world. 
These stations now number 80,000, and as they are 
constantly changing, it is no wonder that the list is 
now in the sixth edition. This is not so heavv a task 



32 THE U2UTED STATES OF EUROPE 

as that which is undertaken by the Postal Union Bu- 
reau, for there are 200,000 post-offices in the world. 
The bureau, therefore, it will be seen, acts as a kind 
of intelligence department for the telegraphs of the 
world. Incidentally the bureau has undertaken a task 
which, although a very long way removed from that 
of the construction of a cosmopolitan language, never- 
theless points in that direction. 

In passing on to the Postal Union, it is interesting 
to note that the formation of this International Bureau 
was first mooted by the United States of America even 
before their great Civil War was over. It is not less 
suggestive that the proposal, although made in 1863, 
led to no result beyond the publication of resolutions 
as to desiderata in postal administration which had no 
binding effect on any of the parties who took part in 
the Conference. Nevertheless, these desiderata being 
definitely formulated and agreed to as desirable by the 
representatives of the various Powers, a foundation 
was laid, upon which the Union was founded eleven 
years later. The first Postal Conference was held in 
Paris; the second, which was summoned on the initi- 
ative of Germany, met in Berne, where an inscription 
in black marble commemorates the signing of the Con- 
vention which established the 2-Jd. rate for all letters 
within the limits of the Postal Union. It marked the 
transition of an organization previously organized 
upon a particular^ national basis to the wider and 
more rational status of a cosmopolitan institution. At 
the present moment the Postal Union includes fifty- 



THE CAPITAL OF THE CONTINENT 33 

nine States, or groups of colonial possessions, contain- 
ing, roughly stated, 1,000,000,000 inhabitants. The 
bureau serves as a clearing-house between the admin- 
istrations; it is perpetually engaged in settling dis- 
puted questions which arise and points as to the ques- 
tion of interpretation, and it also acts as a kind of arbi- 
tral judge on litigious questions between the various 
administrations. In this case also it is very important 
to note, with a view to the future international devel- 
opment of the United States of Europe, that it is pos- 
sible to refer questions to the bureau for its opinion 
without entering into any preliminary obligation to 
abide by its decision. 

The Administration which deals with " intellectual 
property " was founded by the Convention of Paris 
in 1883; and it now includes sixteen States, with a 
population of 305,000,000 inhabitants. There is no 
need to describe its operations at length. Their nature 
can best be understood by the following statement of 
the services which the bureau is prepared to render : — 

If, therefore, you have ever any need of precise informa- 
tion concerning industrial property which you cannot obtain 
elsewhere, here you have an almost gratuitous source — the 
cost is one franc per consultation — a source at once im- 
partial and exact. In 1896, this bureau received or sent out 
1,554 communications in connection with its inquiry de- 
partment. 

Another institution which places this bureau in direct 
contact with the public is that dealing with the international 
registration of trade-marks. The special arrangement 
relative to this is at the present time binding on nine States: 
Belgium, Brazil, Spain, France, Italy, Holland, Portugal, 
3 



34 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Switzerland and Tunis. If you wish to protect a trade- 
mark in these countries, you may, after having registered 
it in the federal Bureau, send it to the international Bureau, 
together with a sum of 100 francs. This means a saving of 
time as well as of money, obviating, as it does, the necessity 
of registering in each separate country. 

The Union for the Protection of the Rights of 
Authors includes thirteen countries with 534,000,000 
inhabitants. 

In the fourth great organization, which deals with 
International Railways, England has no part. There 
are only ten States represented on this International 
Institution, viz.: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Den- 
mark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Holland and Swit- 
zerland. The network of railway thus submitted to 
the jurisdiction of the bureau is 173,000 kilometres. 
It deals at present only with the goods traffic; but al- 
ready the Russians, who somewhat oddly (according 
to English ideas) seem much more frequently to take 
the initiative in progressive internationalism than 
England, suggest that passenger traffic should also be 
placed under the control of the bureau: — 

The Convention is remarkable in this, that it unites all 
the European railroads belonging to it in one network of 
rails, worked under a common tariff as regards international 
transport, and in such a manner that all the managing de- 
partments are conjointly answerable, the one with the other, 
as regards any goods they have undertaken to carry, so that 
any one can sue either the sending or receiving agents with- 
out taking into consideration on what part of the system the 
damage or delay arose. Definite sums have been fixed in 
case of loss or damage, or if there is delay in delivering 
goods, for the mutual claims of sender and receiver, for the 



THE CAPITAL OF THE CONTINENT 35 

demands of the customs, etc. All that concerns the trans- 
port of merchandise is arranged in so complete a manner 
that Swiss federal law has been copied word for word from 
the Convention. 

The bureau has a list of 2,000 international tariffs 
to publish and a catalogue of all the railway stations 
open to international traffic, of which there are about 
45,000. The International Railway Bureau is prac- 
tically an international arbitration court dealing with 
great institutions, whose revenue is considerably 
greater than that of many States: — 

It acts as an umpire to shorten litigation between different 
administrations when the different parties desire it. Here 
we have an institution which is of quite a novel character, 
and which is of great interest — a permanent tribunal in- 
stituted to regulate international differences. 

Generally speaking, railway bureaus arrange their dis- 
putes by special arbitration for each department of traffic. 
But for all that, interesting cases are brought before the 
permanent tribunal. 

These judicial functions, and those by which the Central 
Office has the right of intervention, at the request of one 
of the parties concerned, to arrange matters which have 
been left in abeyance, are destined in time to become more 
important still. It is possible to foresee the establish- 
ment of a court to facilitate monetary arrangements be- 
tween different administrations. When the institution, 
which is still in its infancy, has developed, there is no doubt 
that new departments will come into existence, and that 
those which already exist will develop still further. For 
instance, Russia has proposed to regulate the transport of 
travellers and of merchandise, and this proposal has been 
already taken into consideration by the administration. 

M. Droz dwells with natural and patriotic pride on 
the fact that these bureaus, domiciled in Switzerland 



36 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

and officered almost entirely by Swiss, have neverthe- 
less succeeded in functioning to the satisfaction of all 
the States whose interests they represent. It is a fact 
of good augury for the future pacific evolution of the 
Continental organism. To have assisted in the devel- 
opment of these centres for international organization 
is one of the services which Switzerland has rendered 
to mankind. Is it, then, too much to describe Berne, 
capital of SAvitzerland and headquarters of so many 
international administrations, as the incipient Capital 
of the United States of Europe? 

Another potent factor in human progress is the in- 
ternational wagon-lit which has hitherto attracted 
little attention from the statesman or the philosopher. 
It is a dumb thing, the wagon-lit, & dull, mechanic 
thing, inanimate, with neither heart, soul, conscience, 
nor reason, but nevertheless it has achieved results 
which prophets and apostles and poets and seers have 
despaired of. Its fatherland is co-extensive with the 
metal track of the Continent, and every time it passes 
it erases, although with imperceptible touch, the fron- 
tiers which divide the nations. It is, indeed, the high- 
est example of human ingenuity in the matter of a 
locomotive dwelling-place. What the Atlantic steamer 
is to the ocean, the wagon-lit is to the solid land. Its 
passengers no sooner cross its threshold than they be- 
come citizens of the world in a very real sense. Not 
even the humble snail of the hedgerow is more com- 
pletely self-contained than your traveller in a wagon- 
lit. He has his own apartment, his bed-chamber, his 



THE CAPITAL OF THE CONTINENT 37 

dining-room, his lavatory; the whole country is spread 
out before him on either side, in one endless gallery 
and panorama of living pictures. He can be alone or 
in society as he pleases. He can take his constitu- 
tional by walking down the long corridors while the 
train is speeding along at the rate of forty or fifty miles 
an hour. The conductor waits upon him as a valet, 
the chef cooks for him, all manner of wine is provided 
for his delectation, he lives in a peripatetic palace as 
comfortably and as luxuriously as he could do in any 
hotel on the Continent. For him even the barrier of 
the clouane is, if not abolished, at least minimized, and 
in many cases the examination of luggage is made on 
the car without any necessity for carrying of packages 
across the barrier to the place of revision. 

Compare for one moment the ease with which I 
travelled around Europe, using the international 
ivagon-lit wherever it was accessible, and the difficul- 
ties with which any monarch or prince of the blood 
would have had to deal only one hundred years ago in 
making the same tour. Neither in speed, in comfort, 
nor economy could the greatest monarch in the world 
have traversed the same distance which a plain plebe- 
ian now covers without the slightest sense of strain or 
of physical exertion. Locomotion has really become 
not so much an exercise as a luxury, and instead of 
regarding a journey of a thousand miles as an enter- 
prise entailing exertion and exposure, we have come 
to regard it as more or less a mode of recuperative 
recreation. 



CHAPTER IV 



THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 



No more signal instance of the possibility of mo- 
mentary aberration on the part of statesmen and peo- 
ples can be imagined than the extraordinary way in 
which Mr. Gladstone and many of his followers took 
to blaspheming the European Concert in the last years 
of his life. All the cheap wit of the newspaper men 
of the world was launched upon the European Con- 
cert: it was slow; it was unwieldy; it might be a steam- 
roller, but a steam-roller which was stuck in the mud. 
A perfect hailstorm of criticisms and witticisms held 
up to ridicule and contempt what was, after all, the 
only principle which the European nations have yet 
discovered for the regulation of their joint affairs with- 
out bloodshed. Apart from its humanitarian aspect, 
the great political merit of Mr. Gladstone's Eastern 
agitation of 1876 to 1878 was due to his advocacy of 
the principle of the European Concert, and the grava- 
men of his impeachment of Lord Beaconsfield's harum- 
scarum Jingo policy was that he had wantonly de- 
stroyed the great instrument by which any improve- 
ments could be effected in the East. Lord Salisbury, 
fortunately, learned his lesson well, and through good 



TEE EUROPEAN CONCERT 39 

report and through ill he has cleaved to the principle 
of concerted action in dealing with the Eastern Ques- 
tion. In that Concert we have not only the germ of 
the United States of Europe, but an actual evolution 
and realization, although still very imperfect, of the 
conception of a federal centre of the Continent, which 
can not only deliberate, but on occasion can act. The 
New Year has opened auspiciously with the triumph 
— tardy but nevertheless genuine — of the principle 
of concerted action in Crete. The four Powers, 
acting in concert, have at last succeeded in expelling 
the Turkish troops from Crete without the exertion 
of any more than police force. There have been no 
pitched battles, and the Crescent has given place to 
the Cross without any of the desperate trials of 
strength between the Turk and the Greek which have 
marked the concession of autonomy to every other 
Turkish province. There were massacres, no doubt, 
which might have been avoided; but there was no war: 
there was only an operation of police. There is in the 
settlement of Cretan affairs a welcome precedent, in- 
dicating the road along which humanity has to travel. 
When the United States of Europe come into or- 
ganic being as complete as that already enjoyed by the 
United States of America, they will still need armed 
forces to execute the decisions of the Federal Govern- 
ment. It will be an international police rather than an 
international soldiery. Mankind passes through regu- 
lar stages in its progress towards peace. First, there is 
the primitive state of universal war, in which every man 



10 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

is free to slay his fellow-man, if he can and if he will. 
From that stage it is by a natural process of easy grada- 
tion that we arrive at a period when the right of levy- 
ing war is practically confined to powerful individuals, 
feudal chieftains and the like. They exercised the 
right of private war, which degenerated in many cases 
into brigandage, out of which Europe emerged, thanks 
to the evolution of the soldier. The trained fighting 
man of the central power, whatever his faults may be, 
nevertheless represents an immense stride in progress 
from the armed bands of the soldiers of fortune and 
feudal chiefs who filled Europe with bloodshed in the 
later Middle Ages. We are now on the verge of the 
next step of evolution — the conversion of the soldier 
into the policeman. The final stage, of course, will 
come when humanity has attained such measure of 
moral development as to stand in no need of coercive 
authority at all, when every one, as the American 
humorist puts it, " can do as he darned well pleases," 
but when every one will only please to do what is right 
and just to his fellow-men. That ultimate ideal of 
the Christian and of the Anarchist lies far ahead, but 
on the road thither stands the evolution of the soldier 
into the policeman. But this will not be attained 
until the United States of Europe have come into for- 
mal and juridical existence. In Crete we can see it on 
the way. Crete also has established the great prin- 
ciple that the unity of the European Concert is not 
destroyed when a couple of its members refuse to take 
any active part in giving effect to its decisions. We 



TEE EUROPEAN CONCERT 41 

are therefore within measurable range of seeing the 
establishment of a real federated Europe which will 
not be crippled by the principle of the liberum veto. 

At one time there seemed a great danger that this 
mistake would be committed. By the liberum veto, 
in the old Polish kingdom any one member of the 
Assembly could defeat any proposition by simply ut- 
tering his protest. In like manner it has been held 
that the six Powers must all keep step or they can do 
nothing at all. The necessary consequence was that 
the Powers were often reduced to impotence. But 
this is a passing phase. Sooner or later — probably 
sooner than later — it will be discovered that the libe- 
rum veto will be as fatal to Europe as it proved to 
Poland. In the European Areopagus decisions will 
have to be taken without absolute unanimity, and in 
this, as in other things, the minority will have to yield 
to the majority. Of course, each of the great Powers 
will always have a sovereign right to go to war to en- 
force its protest, if it should feel so disposed ; but there 
is a very great difference between going to war to en- 
force your veto and securing the rejection of any pro- 
posal by simply recording your dissent. 

In this respect, Mr. Gladstone took a very significant 
initiative in the year 1880. No one had insisted more 
strongly upon the maintenance of the European Con- 
cert as the one weapon with which it was possible to 
extort anything from the Sultan. But when Mr. 
Gladstone took in hand the task of enforcing the pro- 
visions of the Berlin Treaty, he found that one or more 



42 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

of the Powers were disposed to liang back. He suc- 
ceeded with great difficulty iu mustering an inter- 
national fleet in the Adriatic for the purpose of induc- 
ing the Turk to make the necessary cession of territory 
to Montenegro, but when the question arose as to what 
further measures should be adopted to enforce submis- 
sion to the demands which Europe had formulated, 
France and Germany drew back. Russia and Italy 
supported Mr. Gladstone's generous initiative. Mr. 
Gladstone had then to decide what should be done. 
If he had adopted the liberum veto theory of the Con- 
cert, and had meekly acquiesced in the doctrine that 
nothing should be done unless all the Powers were 
agreed as to what that something should be, the Turk 
would have snapped his fingers at the Powers, and 
vital clauses of the Berlin Treaty would never have 
been executed. But Mr. Gladstone fortunately was 
made of different material. All the Powers had 
agreed as to what should be done. The Turk himself 
has signed the treaty which ceded territory to Mon- 
tenegro and Greece. There was, therefore, unanimity 
of opinion as to what should be clone; there was only 
difference of opinion as to how to carry it into effect. 
France, Germany, and Austria hung back, but Mr. 
Gladstone, with Bussia and Italy at his back, decided 
to seize the Turkish custom-house at Smyrna, in order 
to enforce the Sultan's submission to the mandate of 
Europe. The three Powers which abstained did not, 
although they murmured and held aloof, absolutely 
veto any such action on the part of their allies. Had 



THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 43 

they done so, it would have been difficult for Mr. 
Gladstone to proceed, for Europe would then have 
been equally divided, three against three. As the 
matter stood, the three who were bent on action did 
not allow the refusal of the support of the others to 
paralyze their action. If in 1896 Lord Salisbury 
could have secured the support of two other Powers, 
it is possible that he would have dealt as drastically 
with the Turk as Mr. Gladstone. Unfortunately, in 
the recent crisis we had not even a single Power at 
our back, and some of the Powers were believed to be 
ready to oppose our isolated action even by force of 
arms. 

Under these circumstances, with a strong majority 
in the European Council Chamber against action, the 
minority can only submit until such time as it has 
converted itself into a majority. It is probable that 
for some time to come the European Concert will con- 
tinue to insist upon unanimity in defining the pro- 
posals which are to be made to the Turk, but the 
method of securing compliance therewith will be de- 
cided by a majority vote. 

We have come very near adopting this principle in 
the case of Crete. When it became evident that sub- 
mission to the will of Europe in Crete would entail 
expense and would mortally offend the Turk, Ger- 
many withdrew and was followed by Austria. They 
did not actually protest against the enforcement of the 
decree of Europe, but they repudiated any responsi- 
bility, and declined to take- any share in the active 



44 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

operations. Undeterred by this shrinking from the 
logical consequences of their acts, the four Powers 
went on, and succeeded in putting the matter through, 
although not, unfortunately, until the conscience of 
England had been stirred up by the slaying of several 
of our own soldiers. These details, however, will 
shrink out of sight when the historian of the future 
comes to describe the evolution of the United States 
of the Old World. The broad fact is that the six 
Powers having decreed, the four Powers carried out 
the decree. When success was achieved, the spokes- 
man of the abstaining Powers publicly approved of 
what was done, and remarked that four Powers were 
probably a more effective instrument than six in en- 
forcing a policy agreed upon by all. It is an awkward 
question whether the four Powers would have ven- 
tured to put the thing through, if the two, instead of 
merely deserting, had taken up an active policy of 
protest against any further military or naval action in 
Crete. Such an attitude at some future crisis will 
probably test the cohesion and the determination of 
the majority of the European Powers. 

Everything points in the direction of Europe having 
so much to do in providing for the liquidation of the 
Ottoman Empire that the six foreign ministers of the 
great Powers will become more and more a European 
Cabinet, who will learn the habit of working together 
under the daily pressure of events. If so, it would 
seem as if the Turk were going to make amends in the 
final years of his reign for the innumerable atrocities 



THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 45 

which have been his chief resource in government 
since the time he entered Europe. For if Europe can 
be accustomed to act practically as a unity, it will in 
time bring about the United States of Europe, which 
will be none the less welcome because it will be born 
of mutual fear and distrust rather than of brotherly 
love and neighborly confidence. 

In the old myth, when Jupiter bore Europa across 
the sea, he landed her in the Island of Crete, where 
she bore three sons — Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhada- 
manthus. It was a curious coincidence that a Euro- 
pean army commissioned by the six great Powers, and 
acting under the collective orders of Europe, should 
for the first time have made its appearance on the 
Island of Crete. But the coincidence was of happy 
omen, that the new Europa may bring forth, if not 
Minos the lawgiver, and Rhadamanthus the inexorable 
judge, at least a system of international law which will 
be interpreted by an international tribunal. 

In discussing elsewhere the question as to the forces 
which would tend to bring the United States of Europe 
into the most visible and tangible existence, I pointed 
out that there were two elements that were needed if 
the Federation of Europe was to be attained by the 
same road as that by which other federations had been 
brought about on a similar scale: — 

The first and the most necessary is the existence of some 
extraordinary force sufficiently powerful to necessitate the 
union of those whose existence it threatens. In other 
words, in order to found a Kingdom of Heaven it is neces- 
sary that you must have an effective working Devil. John 



46 THE I SITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Bull in the eighteenth century was the incarnation of evil, 
in protest against which the American Union came into 
existence. 

In our own century it was the menace of French aggres- 
sion which alone possessed sufficient force to overcome the 
centrifugal tendencies of the German peoples. Where are 
we to find an adequate Devil to overcome the force of inertia 
as well as the more active elements of national rivalry and 
race antipathies, so as to bring about the federation of 
Europe? The other element which is lacking is a central 
power sufficiently strong to compel the recalcitrant States 
to come into the alliance. Of course it is a nobler ideal that 
free and equal States should voluntarily, of their own good- 
will, unite on a basis of absolute independence. But human 
nature is not made that way. There is usually a recalcitrant 
minority which needs to be compelled to volunteer. Nearly 
every European State, England not excepted, represents the 
result of a process in which a strong central power has 
gradually crushed all rivals and established authority which 
is now recognized by consent, by the summary process of 
beheading or slaughtering those whose devotion to their 
private and local interests led them to refuse to cooperate 
in the larger unity. The most helpful analogies are to be 
found in the United States of America and the Republic of 
Switzerland. There the federation was established by the 
cooperation of the sovereign States without the need for 
the intervention of any predominant central power; but 
alike in Switzerland and the United States, the federation 
which began in goodwill had to be enforced by the armed 
hand, and we need not be surprised if the United States of 
Europe only gets itself into material existence after con- 
siderable bloodshed. That, however, is a detail, and it is 
a thousand times better that men should be killed in order 
that their corpses should pave the way to the reign of law, 
than that they should be slaughtered merely to perpetuate 
the existing anarchy. In looking round for the necessary 
Devil whose evil influence is strong enough to compel the 
European States to federate, we fail to find any excepting 
our old friend the Assassin at Constantinople. 



THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 47 

The Turk, I admitted, although evil, was hardly 
important enough to play the great role; and yet, fail- 
ing him, I did at that time not see where to find any 
other. The second indispensable condition was to 
find a leader who would marshal the forces making 
for union and lead them to victory. Two years ago 
it seemed doubtful whether such a leader could be 
found. Last year brought us light on both subjects, 
for it brought us a leader in the person of the Tsar, 
and in his Rescript he indicated a danger quite suffi- 
ciently grave to overcome the force of inertia, as well 
as the more active elements of national rivalry and 
race antipathies. In the year 1897 Lord Salisbury 
himself — a man not given to indulge in day-dreams — 
put an unerring finger upon this sore point. Speaking 
at the Mansion House on November 9th, 1897, after 
dwelling upon the ever-increasing competition in 
armaments among the nations, Lord Salisbury said : — 

The one hope that we have to prevent this competition 
(in armaments) from ending in a terrible effort of mutual 
destruction, which will be fatal to Christian civilization — 
the one hope that we have is that the Powers may gradually 
be brought together to act together in a friendly spirit on all 
subjects of difference that may arise., until at last they shall 
be welded together in some international constitution which 
shall give to the world, as the result of their great strength, 
a long spell of unfettered commerce, prosperous trade and 
continued peace. 

That was Lord Salisbury's one hope. When a year 
later the Peace Rescript of the Tsar appeared, it was 
evident that it was a hope equally entertained at St. 



48 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Petersburg. Except in international action, there 
was no hope of escaping from a peril which, mi- 
checked, would overwhelm civilization in ruin. I 
marvel at my own blindness when, writing in 1897, I 
failed to perceive what was plainly manifest under our 
very eyes. Compared with the catastrophe so clearly 
foreseen and described by the Tsar, the dangers 
involved in the partition of the Ottoman Empire fade 
into utter insignificance. My only excuse is that I 
was no blinder than the majority of mankind appear 
to be even to-day when the clarion call from St. Peters- 
burg is echoing through the world. So now we have 
the necessary stimulus in the revelation of a visible 
danger, and at the same time we have at the head of 
the family of nations a ruler young enough, brave 
enough, and enthusiastic enough to undertake a task 
from which the rest of his contemporaries have shrunk 
in despair. 

I do not claim for Nicholas II. of Russia that he 
towers aloft above his contemporaries, or that he, who 
is the most modest of men, has any aspirations to play 
the role of the founder of the European Common- 
wealth. I only say that he, more than any sovereign 
in Europe, has the eye to see and the courage to say the 
essential truth of the situation. It is probable that 
he himself but dimly realizes whither his initiative 
will lead him. The British people who, in Seeley's 
famous phrase, " founded an empire in sheer absence 
of mind," are the last people in the world to demand 
that those who do great things should know before- 



THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 49 

hand what they are about. But if the Emperor does 
not see it himself, it is plain enough to all the rest of 
the world, and will, in due season, make itself manifest 
to him also, that if the ideals set before the world in 
his Rescript are to be achieved, it will be done by fol- 
lowing the well-worn path which leads to the federa- 
tion of the Continent. 

This is not the only century in which the idealist 
has dreamed of a Continental State and sovereigns 
have labored for the realization of the sublime con- 
ception of a federated Europe. The ideas associated 
with the Amphictyonic Council have haunted as will- 
o'-the-wisps the imagination of successive generations 
of mankind. Under the Caesars, western, southern 
and central Europe was rough-hewn into an effective 
imperial unity. All the greater Popes had the vision 
of united Europe, and most of them, seeing that no 
one else grasped the great conception, sought sedu- 
lously to confer upon the chair of St. Peter the he- 
gemony of the Continent, 

Mr. Edwin R. Mears in the New England Magazine 
recently summarized in a series of articles the sugges- 
tions made by eminent thinkers for securing the peace 
of the world. Here, for instance, is his account of 
the great design of Henri IV. in the very last years 
of the sixteenth century : — 

Henri IV., acting in concert with Queen Elizabeth in her 
old age, conceived the plan of what he called the Christian 
Commonwealth, to be formed among the Powers of Europe. 
His plan in brief was this, to reduce the number of European 
states, much as the Congress of Vienna eventually did two 
4 



50 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

hundred years afterwards, or so that all Europe should be 
divided among fifteen Powers. Russia did not then count 
as part of Europe; and Prussia was not then born. Of these 
Powers, six were the kingdoms of England, France, Spain, 
Denmark, Sweden and Lombardy. Five were to be elective 
monarchies, viz.: The German Empire, the Papacy, Poland, 
Hungary and Bohemia; and there were to be four repub- 
lics — Switzerland, Venice, the States of Holland and Bel- 
gium, and the Republic of Italy, made up somewhat as the 
kingdom of Italy is now. These fifteen Powers were to 
maintain but one standing army. The chief business of this 
army was to keep the peace among the States, and to pre- 
vent any sovereign from interfering with any other, from 
enlarging his borders, or other usurpations. This army and 
the navy were also to be ready to repel invasions of Mussul- 
mans and other barbarians. For the arrangement of com- 
merce, and other mutual interests, a Senate was to be ap- 
pointed of four members from each of the larger, and two 
from each of the smaller States, who should serve three 
years, and be in constant session. It was supposed that, for 
affairs local in their character, a part of these Senators 
might meet separately from the others. On occasions of 
universal importance, they would meet together. Smaller 
congresses, for mOre trivial circumstances, were also pro- 
vided for. . . . According to Sully, at the moment of 
Henri's murder, he had secured the practical active co- 
operation of twelve of the fifteen Powers, who were to unite 
in this confederation. 

The immediate aim of this arrangement was to 
humble the overweening power of Austria, but the 
further purpose was to secure permanent peace. 
One hundred years later, in 1693, William Penn 
brought out his " Essay Towards the Present and 
Future Peace of Europe, by the Establishment of an 
European Diet, Parliament or Estates." Penn's 
fundamental proposition was, in his own words: — 



THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 51 

The sovereign princes of Europe, who represent that 
society or independent state of men that was previous to the 
obligations of society, should, for the same reason that 
engaged men first into society, viz., love of peace and order, 
agree to meet by their stated deputies in a general diet, estates 
or parliament, and there establish rules of justice for sov- 
ereign princes to observe one to another; and thus to meet 
yearly, or once in two or three years at farthest, or as they 
shall see cause, and to be styled the Sovereign or Imperial Diet, 
Parliament, or State of Europe, before which sovereign assem- 
bly should be brought all differences depending between 
one sovereign and another that cannot be made up by 
private embassies before the session begins; and that if any 
of the sovereignties that constitute these Imperial States 
shall refuse to submit their claims or pretensions to them, 
or to abide and perform the judgment thereof, and seek their 
remedy by arms or delay their compliance beyond the time 
prefixed in their resolutions, all the other sovereignties, 
united as one strength, shall compel the submission and 
performance of the sentence, with damages to the suffering 
that obliged their party and charges to the sovereignties' 
submission. 



It will be observed that Perm was not afraid of that 
" blessed word compulsion." In this respect he dis- 
tinguishes himself from most of the " peace at any 
price " people who are generally eager to consider 
themselves his followers. But Penn was a statesman 
with actual and intimate knowledge of affairs. Just 
as many nowadays quote the precedents of the United 
States, so Penn referred to Sir William Temple's 
account of the United Provinces of Holland " as fur- 
nishing a practical illustration in narrow limits of that 
constitution which he would have extended to cover 
all Europe." 



52 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Yet another hundred years and Immanuel Kant 
published in 1795 his " Towards Eternal Peace/' of 
which the leading ideas were local autonomy and 
world-wide federalism, or the federation of self -gov- 
erned States. There is a strange periodicity about 
these great dreams of universal peace. At the end 
of the sixteenth century, Henri IY.'s "Great Design" ; 
at the end of the seventeenth, Penn's " Essay " ; at the 
end of the eighteenth, Kant's " Zum ewigen Frieden," 
to be followed at the end of the nineteenth century 
by the Imperial Rescript of the Emperor of Russia. 

Even the Napoleons, the first as well as the third, 
saw the coining of Europe afar off, and each in his own 
way labored to bring it to birth. The first, a Mars 
who had clutched the thunderbolt of Jove, stormed 
across the Continent, crumbling beneath his mail-clad 
feet whole acres of feudal masonry which cumbered 
the ground. The offspring and the Nemesis of the 
Revolution, he was the greatest leveller the Continent 
had ever seen. The third Napoleon, whose favorite 
occupation he himself defined as devising solutions for 
insoluble problems, dreamed much of the possibility 
of reconstituting some kind of federation of Europe. 
It was this cloudy notion that prompted those con- 
tinual proposings of conferences with which he used 
to trouble his hand-to-mouth contemporaries. Nor 
was it only in Kings' courts or in Imperial or Papal 
Councils that the great idea brooded over the minds 
of men. It was the theme of the poet's song, of the 
saint's devotions. It inspired much of the swelling 



TEE EUROPEAN CONCERT 53 

rhetoric of Victor Hugo. It was the burden of the 
prophetic vision of Mazzini. 

And now this far-off, unseen event, toward which 
the whole Continent has been moving with slow but 
resistless march, has come within the pale of practical 
politics, and on the threshold of the twentieth century 
we await this latest and greatest new birth of Time. 



CHAPTER Y 



EUROPA 



I had the good fortune to be in Berlin two years 
ago. A great capital is always a great inspiration. 
And Berlin, with its heroic associations of past wars, 
is more inspiring than most of the younger cities of 
the world. But that which impressed me most on 
this visit was the new building of the Reichstag, which 
had not been completed the last time I was in Ger- 
many. It was not the building itself — although that 
is imposing, if rather squat, with noble equestrian 
statues standing boldly against the sky — but the polit- 
ical fact which it represented. Here under one roof, 
around the same tribune, gather in peaceful debate 
the representatives of as many States as those which 
now make up the anarchy of Europe. It is the fashion 
nowadays to speak of language as if it were a tie closer 
than all others. But the belief in the unity of the 
Fatherland because of its common speech is hardly a 
century old, and long after Arndt had embodied the 
idea in verse, German fought German with the Utmost 
indifference to the German tongue. The intense in- 
dividuality of the German, his tendency to construct 
a special theory of the universe entirely for his own 



EUROPA 55 

use out of his own consciousness, made the German 
races the most intractable material for empire-building 
on the Continent. They fought each other for the 
love of God; they fought for the pride of place; they 
were capable of fighting for a theory of irregular 
verbs. They were divided, and sub-divided, and re- 
divided again into kingdoms, principalities, duchies, 
and all manner of smaller States. Every ruler was 
as touchy as a Spanish hidalgo about his precedence, 
and no miser ever clutched his gold with more savage 
determination to keep and to hold than every German 
princelet maintained to the uttermost the princely pre- 
rogative of making war and peace. Not even the con- 
stant pressure of foreign peril sufficed to overcome the 
centrifugal tendency of the German genius. Again 
and again the wiser heads amongst them had devised 
more or less elaborate plans for securing German 
unity. After the fall of Napoleon, the best that could 
be done was the Bund, which was almost as provoking 
in its deliberative inaction as the European Concert 
is to-day. But the Bund perished at the sword's point, 
to be succeeded by the North and South German Con- 
federations, which in turn disappeared when the vic- 
tories over France rendered it possible for the Prus- 
sian King to be proclaimed German Emperor in the 
Palace at Versailles. Since then unified Germany 
has been at peace. Germany has become a unit, and 
the Reichstag, although sorely distracted by the fis- 
siparous tendency of the German parliamentary man, 
has been the parliament of the United Empire. 



56 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

How long will it be, I wondered, as I wandered 
through the building of the Reichstag, before unified 
Europe has its Parliament House, and the Federation 
of Europe finds for itself a headquarters and a local 
habitation for a permanent representative assembly? 
What Germany has done, Europe may do. 

The union of Germany has not resulted in the dis- 
armament of Germans, neither would the Constitution 
of the United States of Europe lead to the disarma- 
ment of the Continent. But no German now buckles 
on the sword with any dread lest he may have to un- 
sheathe it against a brother German. The area within 
which peace reigns and the law court is supreme is now 
widened so as to include all German lands between 
Russia and France. That is an enormous gain. If 
we could achieve anything like it for Europe we might 
be well content. 

The progress of mankind to a higher civilization 
has been marked at every stage by the continuous 
widening of the area within which no sword shall be 
drawn and no shot fired save by command of the cen- 
tral authority. In pure savagery every individual is 
a sovereign unit. The mateless tiger in the jungle 
is the most perfect type of the first stage of human 
individualism. "Whom he will or can he slays, and 
whom he will or must he spares alive. His appetite 
or his caprice is his only law. He has power of life 
and death, and the sole right of levying war or making 
peace without reference to any other sovereignty than 
his own. From that starting-point man has gradually 




THE REICHSTAG BUILDING, BERLIN 




THE REKIISKATII, VIENNA 



EUROPA 57 

progressed by irregular stages across the centuries, 
until the right to kill, instead of being the universal 
prerogative of every man, is practically vested in about 
twenty hands — so far as white-skinned races are con- 
cerned. The first step was the substitution of the 
family for the individual as the unit of sovereignty. 
War might prevail ad libitum outside, but there must 
be peace at home. After the family came the tribe. 
After the tribe, the federation of tribes for purposes 
of self-defence or of effective aggression. Then came 
the cities, with the civic unit. From time to time a 
despot or conqueror, driven by sheer ambition, estab- 
lished an empire, which, however imperfect it might 
be, maintained peace within its boundaries. Then 
nations were formed, each with their own organism 
and each allowing at first a very wide latitude for pri- 
vate and local war to their component parts. In our 
own history, not even our insular position prevented 
our forefathers, long after they had achieved some 
kind of nominal unity, preserving with jealous eye 
the right of private and provincial war. By slow de- 
grees, however, the right to kill has been confined to 
even fewer and fewer hands. The mills of God have 
ground as usual very slowly, but those who took the 
sword perished by the sword, and the pertinacious as- 
serters of the ancient inalienable right of private war 
were converted from the error of their ways by the 
effective process of extermination at the hands of a 
stronger power, determined that no one should wield 
the power of the sword but itself. In Germany to- 



58 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

day, in place of a hundred potentates, each enjoying 
the right to kill, William II. is the sole War Lord. 

And as it is in Germany so it is elsewhere. The 
right to suspend the Decalogue so far as the command 
" Thou shalt not kill " is concerned is now confined in 
Europe to William II., Nicholas II., Francis Joseph, 
Humbert, Victoria, and President Faure. These 
are the lords of the first degree, whose right to kill 
is practically absolute. After them come the lords 
of the second degree, who are allowed a certain lati- 
tude of killing provided they can secure the neutrality 
of one or more of the War Lords of the first degree. 
There is a nominal right to kill enjoyed by all the 
kings of all the States. But as a matter of fact it 
cannot be exercised except in alliance with one or 
other of the greater Powers. Greece thought that it 
was possible to exercise this nominal prerogative of 
independent sovereignty. Her experience is not such 
as to encourage other small States to follow her 
example. 

But in reality the persons who have the unrestricted 
right to kill in Europe are even fewer than the six 
absolute war lords. Europe is now practically divided 
into two camps. There is the Eusso-French Alliance, 
entered into for the purpose of restraining France 
from precipitating war, which practically gives Nich- 
olas II. a veto upon the right of levying war enjoyed 
by the French Republic. On the other hand, there 
is the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy, 
which practically renders it impossible for Austria or 





QUEEN AVILIIELMINA OF HOLLAND 



Hansen & Wetter, Copenhagen 
THE LATE QUEEN OF DENMARK 





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Giucomo and Brogi, Florence 
QUEEN MARGHARITA OF ITALY 



Schaaruachter, Berlin 
THE EMPRESS OF GERMANY 



SOME QUEENS OF EUROPE 



EURO PA 59 

Italy to go to war without the permission of William 
II. Between these two Alliances there is the British 
Empire. In Europe, therefore, the right of levying 
war is vested almost solely in the Queen, her grandson, 
and her granddaughter's husband. Nicholas II., Wil- 
liam II., and Victoria — these three are the Trium- 
virate of Europe. And as the late Tsar said to me at 
Gatschina, " If these three — Kussia, Germany, and 
England — hold together, there will be no war." So 
far, therefore, we have come in our pilgrimage to the 
United States of Europe, that the power of the sword, 
which last century was a practical reality in the hands 
of a hundred potentates, is now practically limited to 
three persons, without whose permission no gun may 
be fired in wrath in the whole Continent. 

]STo reproach is more frequently brought against me 
than that of inconsistency. It is the most familiar 
of the jibes which are flung at me by both friends and 
foes alike when they differ from me, that they never 
know what I am going to be at next, and that I am 
everything by turns and nothing long. These re- 
proaches and sarcasms I have borne with the equanim- 
ity of one whose withers are unwrung, for I happen to 
be in the fortunate position of a man whose opinions 
have been on record from day to day and from month 
to month for the last twenty-five years. To all such 
accusations there is only one answer: Litem scripta 
manet. It is quite true that I have infinitely varied 
the method by which I have sought to attain the ulti- 
mate ideal that at the very beginning of my journal- 



60 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

istic career I set myself to realize. I have supported 
and opposed in turn almost every leading statesman, 
and I have from time to time thrown whatever influ- 
ence I had, now on the side of Imperialism, and then 
on the side of peace, and I have done all this, and 
hope to go on doing it till the end of my time. But 
to base the charge of inconsistency on this continual 
change of tactics is as absurd as it would be to accuse 
a mariner of not steering for his port because from 
day to day and from hour to hour he tacks from side 
to side in order the more expeditiously to reach his 
distant port. 

This question of the United States of Europe has 
been one of the ideals towards which I have constantly, 
in fair weather and in foul, directed my course. 
Nineteen years ago, in the critical election of 1880, 
it was my lot to draw up an electoral catechism which 
was more widely used as an electoral weapon by the 
party which issued triumphant from the polls than 
any other broadsheet in the campaign. In this cate- 
chism I formulated my conception of the English for- 
eign policy in terms which, after the lapse of nineteen 
years, I do not find necessary to vary by a single 
syllable : — 

Question: "What is England's mission abroad?" 
Answer: " To maintain the European Concert — that 
germ of the United States of Europe — against isolated ac- 
tion; to establish a Roman peace among the dark-skinned 
races of Asia, Polynesia, and Africa; to unite all branches 
of the English-speaking race in an Anglo-Saxon Bund, and 
to spread Liberty, Civilization and Christianity throughout 



EUROPA 61 

the world." — " The Elector's Catechism." General Election 
of 1880. 

My last visit to Russia and the publication of this 
book are the latest efforts that I have made to realize 
the ideal which was clearly set out in the above sen- 
tence written in 1880. The conception in those days 
was confined to few, but nowadays the parties led by 
Lord Rosebery and Lord Salisbury would vie with 
each other in asserting their readiness to recognize the 
European Concert as the germ of the United States 
of Europe, and to develop the concerted action of six 
Powers in relation to the question of the East into a 
Federated Union of all the European States. It may 
perhaps be well worth while to form some idea of this 
new organic entity which it is the first object of our 
foreign policy to create. Are we repeating the crime 
of Frankenstein, or are we fashioning, like Pygmalion, 
a beautiful creature into which at the appointed time 
the gods will breathe the breath of life? In other 
words, what is this Europe whose United States we are 
seeking to federate? 

Europe is a continent. It is hardly as yet a realized 
personality. There was a fair Europa in the myth- 
ology of the ancients, whom Jove loved, and whose 
story once suggested to Tenniel the idea that John 
Bull might aspire successfully to play the part of the 
Father of gods and men. But outside mythology 
there is little personification of Europe. The sym- 
bolical group at the base of the Albert Memorial, 
representing Europe as one of the four continents, is 



A 



02 THE UNITED XTATEH OF EUROPE 

almost the only effort with which we are familiar in 
England. 

But such personification of a Federation of States 
is possible enough. The United States of America 
form a federation which has its recognized symbolical 
embodiment in Columbia and its humorous personifi- 
cation in Uncle Sam. The British Empire is a con- 
glomerate far more heterogeneous and wide-scattered 
than the United States of Europe, but we have our 
symbol in the heroic figure of Britannia and our famil- 
iar personification in John Bull. The German Em- 
pire, to take another illustration, is also a conglomerate 
of kingdoms and duchies and cities; but the first great 
effort of German art to express in permanent form the 
triumph of German arms in the attainment of German 
unity was the erection of the colossal statue of Ger- 
mania upon the wooded heights of the Mederwald, 
where she still keeps watch and ward over the German 
Rhine. But in all these cases it must be admitted 
there is a certain unity of national type which facili- 
tates the task of personifying the federal combination. 

The caricaturist, who often precedes the more seri- 
ous artist in the selection and illustration of themes 
of national and international importance, has not been 
slow to seize the opening offered by the first crude, 
tentative efforts towards international action in Crete 
by portraying the European soldier as a fantastic con- 
glomerate, a thing of shreds and patches, clothed in 
fragments of all uniforms. ~Not so will the artist pro- 
ceed who endeavors to present before the world the 



EUROPA 63 

heroic proportions of her who, although the least 
among the Continents, is now, as she has been for two 
thousand years, greatest amongst them all. The Star 
of Empire which shone in the remote past over the 
valley of the Mle and the plains watered by the 
Euphrates has since the great day of Salamis been 
faithful to Europe. It may be that the new Conti- 
nent of the West may yet challenge successfully the 
primacy of the older world. But except in alliance 
with Britain, no such challenge can be dreamed of for 
a century, and Britain is European as well as Ameri- 
can, Asiatic as well as African. Eor as the Tsar is 
Emperor of All the Russias, so Her Majesty is Em- 
press on All the Continents and of All the Seas. 

There is a charming little poem by Russell Lowell 
entitled " The Beggar." The poet describes himself 
as a beggar wandering through the world, asking from 
all things that he meets something of their distinguish- 
ing characteristics. Erom the old oak he craves its 
steadfastness, from the granite gray its stern unyield- 
ing might, from the sweetly mournful pine he asks its 
pensiveness serene, from the violet its modesty, and 
from the cheerful brook its sparkling light content. 

The idea is a pretty conceit, but it may help us to 
consider the distinctive qualities which the world may 
crave not in vain from the various component parts 
of this new composite entity, the United States of 
Europe. 

It is indeed good to regard our sister nations with 
grateful heart, to contemplate the gifts which they 



64 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

bring with them to the fraternal banquet of the peo- 
ples, and to realize, if only in imagination, what we 
should lose if any of the European States were to 
drop out of the world. 

First among the States in area and in power stands 
Russia, the sword of Europe against the Infidel, for 
centuries the only hope and shelter of the Christian 
East. Upon the threshold of the Russian home burst 
the full horrors of Asiatic conquest. Time was when 
every wandering Tartar from the steppes rode as mas- 
ter and owner over prostrate Muscovy. But the storm 
of nomad savagery spent itself upon the Russian land, 
which, though submerged for a time, nevertheless 
saved Europe. 

After a time the Russians threw off the yoke of the 
oppressor and entered upon their secular mission as 
liberators and champions of the Christian East. To 
their self-sacrificing valor the world owes the freedom 
of Roumania, the emancipation of Servia, the inde- 
pendence of Greece, and the liberation of Bulgaria. 
Not a freeman breathes to-day between the Pruth and 
the Adriatic but owes his liberty to Russia. Liberty 
in these Eastern lands was baptized in Russian blood 
freely spent in the Holy War against the Moslem op- 
pressor. ~Nor is it only liberty in Eastern lands which 
owes a heavy debt to Russian sacrifices. As Russia in 
the Middle Ages received upon her ample breast the 
shock of the Tartar spears, and made for Europe a 
rampart with her bleeding form against the Asiatic 
horde, so Russia at the dawn of this century arrested 



EUROPA 65 

the devastating wave of Napoleonic conquest. The 
flames of her burning capital were as the star of the 
dawn to the liberties of Europe. Moscow delivered 
the death-blow to which Leipsic and "Waterloo were 
but the coup de grace. In later years Kussia has done 
yeoman's service to the cause of humanity by bri- 
dling the savages of the Asiatic steppes and destroying 
slavery in the heart of Asia. She is now bridging the 
Continent with a road of steel, and from Archangel 
to Odessa, from Warsaw to Saghalien is maintaining 
with somewhat heavy hand the Roman peace. Russia 
has preserved in the midst of her dense forests and 
illimitable steppes the principle of cooperative hus- 
bandry, of a commune based on brotherly love, and 
has realized the dream of village republics locally 
autonomous under the aegis of the Tsar. In the face 
of Asia, fanatically Moslem, and Europe, fanatically 
Papal, Russia has maintained alike against Turkish 
scimitar and Polish lance her steadfast allegiance to 
the Christian Creed. Her travellers penetrate the 
remotest fastnesses of Asia; her men of science are in 
the foremost rank of modern discovery; the stubborn 
valor of her soldiers has taught the world new lessons 
as to the might of self-sacrificing obedience; her poor- 
est peasant preserves unimpaired the splendid loyalty 
and devotion of the Middle Ages; her writers of 
genius, like Turgenieff, delight the civilized world 
with their romances; her painters, Gay and Verest- 
chagin, display a genius as great on canvas as her 

Rubinstein and Paderewski in music; while in all the 
5 



66 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

world to-day no voice sounds out over sea and land 
with such prophetic note as that of Count Tolstoi. 
There is in Russia, as in every other land, much that 
even the most patriotic Russians would wish absent; 
but who is there who can deny that, take her all in 
all, the disappearance of Russia as she is from the 
European galaxy would leave us poor indeed? 

From the largest to the smallest, from the Empire 
of the plain to the Republic of the Alps, is but a step. 
Both are European. Who is there among free men 
whose pulse does not beat faster at the thought of all 
that Switzers have dared and Switzers have done? 
Here in the heart of surrounding despotism these 
hardy peasants and mountaineers tended the undying 
flame of Liberty, and century after century furnished 
an envious world with the spectacle of a frugal Re- 
public, whose more than Roman virtue remained proof 
against the blandishments of royal ambition or the 
menaces of imperial power. William Tell may be a 
myth, but the legend that is associated with his name 
is more of a living reality than all the deeds of all 
the Hapsburgs duly certified by the official Dry-as- 
dusts. And Arnold von "Winkelried, he at least was 
real both in history and in song, and for all time the 
story of his dying cry, "Make way for Liberty! " as 
he gathered the Austrian spears into his breast, will 
lift the soul of man above the level of selfish common- 
place and inspire even the least imaginative of mortals 
with some gleam of the vision — the beatific vision — of 
the heroism of sacrifice. To-day, when the day of 




EMFEROR WILLIAM OF GERMANY 



EMPEROR FRANZ JOSEPH OF AUSTRIA- 
HUNGARY 




Gosta Florman, Stockholm Adele Vienna 

KING OSCAR OF SWEDEN THE KING OF SERVIA 

FOUR MOXARCHS OF EUROPE 



EUROPA 67 

storm and stress has given place to more tranquil times, 
Switzerland has become at once the political and social 
laboratory of the world and the playground and health 
resort of Europe. Here at the base of her snowclad 
hills Europe cherishes as the elite of the Continent 
the intelligent and energetic democracy which defends 
its frontier without the aid of a standing army; and 
while lacking alike rivers, seaport, coal, and iron, has 
nevertheless proved itself able to hold its own in the 
competition of the world. 

" Italia, oh! Italia, thou who hast the fatal gift of 
beauty," hast the not less priceless gift of associations 
of history and romance, before which those of all other 
nations but Greece simply disappear. The nation 
which boasts as its capital the city of the Csesars can 
never yield to any other the primacy of fame. Europe 
once centred in the Eternal City. The unity of the 
Continent, as far as the Rhine and the Danube, was 
for centuries a realized fact, when the sceptre had not 
departed from Rome nor the lawgiver from the banks 
of the Tiber. Nor is the Italian claim to primacy 
solely traditional. Eor whatever may be the political 
power of the Quirinal as a world power, Italy makes 
herself felt through the Vatican. At this moment, 
in Chicago, public life is more or less demoralized be- 
cause an Italian old man in Rome made a mistake in 
the selection of the Irishman who rules the great Cath- 
olic city of the West as the Pope's archbishop. And 
as it is in Chicago, so it is to a greater or lesser extent 
in every vast centre of population throughout the 



68 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

world. But the Papacy, although more than Euro- 
pean, is nevertheless a constant factor which must be 
reckoned with in discussing the evolution of Europe. 
The instinct of Leo is entirely in favor of peace and 
unity, but a firebrand in Peter's chair could easily per- 
petuate for another generation the armed anarchy of 
the Continent. Apart alike from politics and religion, 
Italy has always been a potent influence in promoting 
the growth of a wider than national culture, develop- 
ing European rather than provincial interest. For 
centuries before Cook arose and a trip to the Continent 
became a thing of course, Italy alone possessed in her 
treasures of art sufficient attraction to induce men of 
every nation to brave the discomforts and perils of a 
Continental journey. From being the Mistress, Italy 
became the Loadstone of the Continent, and that dis- 
tinction she has still preserved. To those treasure- 
cities of mediaeval art which shine like stars in the 
firmament, reverent pilgrims every year bend their 
way as to most sacred shrines. But in every age, Italy, 
whether poor, distracted, and overrun by barbarian 
conquerors, or queening it as mistress over a Conti- 
nent, has ever possessed a strange and magic charm. 
Dante was hers, and Raphael, Michael Angelo, and 
Savonarola — four names, the power and the glory of 
which are felt even where they are not understood, in 
the remote backwoods of America, or in the depths 
of the Australian bush. In modern times the revolu- 
tionary energy of the mid-century was cradled in Italy. 
Garibaldi restored to politics of the present day some- 



EURO PA 69 

what of the fascination which charms in the pages of 
Ariosto, while Mazzini revived in our latter day the 
primitive type of prophet-seer. 

Nor must we forget, in paying our homage to Italy 
as Queen of the Arts and custodian of the great sites 
from which Pope and Caesar in former times swayed 
the sceptre, spiritual and secular, over mankind, that 
Italy of the present day is peopling the New World 
more rapidly than any of her sister nations. While 
emigration from almost every other country has fallen 
off in the last" decade of the century, that from Italy 
has increased until it amounts to well nigh half of the 
European overflow. If this be kept up, we may see 
a new Italy in South America which may be for the 
Italian language and the Italian race what New 
England has been for Britain in the northern hemi- 
sphere. 

Erom Italy, which on the extreme south approaches 
almost to the torrid heat of Africa, I would turn to 
another land at the opposite extremity of the Conti- 
nent, whose northern frontier lies within the Arctic 
Circle. Sweden and Norway, at present far removed 
from the troubled vortex of European politics, cannot 
vie with Italy in art or with Russia in political power, 
but none the less the sister States represent much 
which Europe could ill spare. "We of the north land, 
at least, and all the teeming progeny that have sprung 
from our loins, can never forget the Scandinavian 
home from whence the sea kings came; and although 
our culture is largely Hebraic on one side and Hellenic 



70 TEE UNITED STATE 8 OF EUROPE 

on the other, the warp and woof upon which the He- 
brew and the Greek have embroidered their ideas is 
essentially Norse. Nor can we of the Kef ormed faith, 
at least, ever forget the heroic stand made on behalf 
of the Protestant religion -by Gustavus Adolphus and 
the brave men whom he led to victory on so many a 
hard-fought field. Charles XII., too, that meteor of 
conquest and of war, supplies one of those heroic and 
chivalrous figures of the European drama whose ro- 
mantic career still inspires those who live under widely 
different circumstances and under remoter skies. 
Norway is the only country in Europe which vies with 
Switzerland in enabling the dwellers in our great 
plains and crowded cities easy access to the sublimest 
mountain scenery. In the social and political realm, 
we owe to Gothenburg, a Swedish town, the most help- 
ful of all the experiments that have been tried for the 
solution of the liquor traffic; while in the world of 
books there are to-day no three names more constantly 
on the lips of the librarians of the world than the three 
great Scandinavians whose fame is the common herit- 
age of our race; Bjornson in fiction, Ibsen in the 
drama, and Nansen in Arctic exploration. 

Again turning southward, we find in Spain another 
of the nations which, in the flush of its Imperial prime, 
endeavored to realize the dream of United Europe. 
Spain at one time seemed destined by Providence to 
the over-lordship of the Old "World and the Xew. 
Between Spain and Portugal the Pope divided the 
whole world which was discovered bv the Genoese 



EUROPA 71 

sailor who was financed by Isabella of Spain. It is 
but three hundred years ago since Spain loomed as 
large before the eyes of Europe as Germany plus Eng- 
land would do to-day. Alike on land and sea there was 
none to challenge her supremacy. To-day Spain is 
the mere shadow of her former self, but even if the 
shadow itself vanished from the earth, the memory of 
the great days of Spanish chivalry when, like Russia 
on the east, she stood warden of Europe on the south, 
can never be forgotten. The chivalrous Moors, who 
have left the imperishable monuments of their pres- 
ence in the fairy-like ruins of the Alhambra, were 
very different from the Tartar horde which nearly 
extinguished Russia; but the secular struggle waged 
against them equally called out the heroic qualities of 
the race. As the Moor was the anvil on which the 
Spanish sword was beaten until it became a veritable 
Toledo blade, so in turn Spain became the anvil on 
which our malleable English metal was beaten into 
the broadsword and trident by which we rule the sea 
to-day. Of all her possessions abroad, Spain to-day 
retains but a few straggling islets in the Eastern seas. 
But Spanish pride is as great to-day in the hour of 
national decline as when Spain was at the zenith of 
imperial prosperity. To European literature she has 
contributed two great names — Cervantes and Calde- 
ron — one of whom is to-day to the majority of us but 
a name and nothing more ; while the other, Cervantes, 
has contributed to the literature of the world one of 
the dozen books which are read evervwhere bv everv- 



72 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

body in every language and in every land. To Europe 
of to-day Spain contributes little but an imposing tra- 
dition and somewhat of the stately dignity of the 
hidalgo, which the modern world, in the rush and 
tumble of these democratic days, is in danger of for- 
getting. Her authors are read but little beyond the 
Pyrenees, her statesmen exercise little weight in Euro- 
pean affairs, but in Castelar she contributed to the Par- 
liament of Europe the most eloquent orator of the 
Continent. 

How incredible it would have seemed in the six- 
teenth century had any one predicted that in the cen- 
turies to come Spain would be a Power of the third 
magnitude, while the Austrian Empire, shorn of all 
influence in Germany, would nevertheless rank among 
the half-dozen great Powers of Europe! But the 
incredible thing has come to pass, and Austria-Hun- 
gary, torn by domestic dissensions and threatened by 
powerful foes, continues to exhibit a marvellous vital- 
ity and indestructible youth. The land of the Danube 
with a dual throne, broad based upon a dozen races 
speaking as many languages — the Empire-kingdom is 
the political miracle of the nineteenth century. Mr. 
Gladstone once scornfully asked, " On what spot of 
the map of the world could Ave place our finger and 
say, here Austria has done good? " But the answer 
is obvious. Outside her frontiers she may have done 
as little good as England has done in eastern Europe, 
but within the limits of the Empire-kingdom Austria 
has rendered invaluable service to the cause of peace 




E. Bieber, Berlin 
COUNT GOLUCHOWSKI 

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Austria-Hungary 



C. Pietzner, Vienna 
COUNT TIIUN 

Austrian Premier 














V ■ 



Ellinger Ede, Budapest 

HERR VON K ALLAY 

Minister of Finance, Austria-Hungary. 



Krzinanek, Vienna 
THE HEIR APPARENT OF AUSTRIA- 
HUNGARY 



EVROPA 73 

and civilization of the semi-savage races whom she has 
tamed and kept in line. To act as schoolmaster, not 
on despotic but on constitutional principles, to Ruth- 
enians and Slovaks, Poles and Czechs; to organize a 
State which is indispensable for European stability, 
out of such discordant elements as those which com- 
pose the conglomerate of Austria-Hungary, these are 
achievements indeed for which Europe is not ungrate- 
ful. The dual kingdom not only bears testimony to 
the possibility of creating an organic entity out of the 
most heterogeneous conglomerate of nationalities, it 
further affords the most signal illustration in contem- 
porary history of the fact that States, like individuals, 
can find salvation by conversion when they truly re- 
pent and bring forth fruits meet for repentance. 
Fifty years ago Austria was a byword to every Liberal. 
To-day there is hardly any State in Central Europe 
which has worked out so many problems of decentrali- 
zation on constitutional lines as the Empire of the 
Hapsburgs. 

Turning from the composite dual kingdom, we 
come to a State which in all things is the antithesis of 
Austria-Hungary. Austria-Hungary, although ex- 
tremely diverse in its nationalities, is nevertheless, 
territorially, within a ring fence. The Danish nation, 
on the other hand, compact, homogeneous to an extent 
almost without parallel in Europe, a unity both in race, 
religion, and in language, is nevertheless scattered 
over a peninsula and half-a-dozen islands. In the 
State system of Europe, Denmark, with its handful 



74 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

of population, can throw no sword of Brennus into the 
scale which decides the destinies of nations; but the 
nation inarches in the van of European progress. Our 
farmers have learnt by sore experience the energy and 
initiative which have enabled the Danish peasant to 
distance all competitors in the markets of Europe. 
The nation, simple, honest, hardy, and industrious, 
free from the vices of caste, is one of the most con- 
spicuous examples extant of monarchical democracy. 
The days have long gone by since Denmark held the 
keys of the Sound and levied tax and toll on the ship- 
ping of the world as it passed through the Baltic to 
the North Sea. But it is worth while remembering 
that the freeing of the Sound was an international act, 
which, as far back as 1857, foreshadowed the collec- 
tive action of Europe. The royal House of Den- 
mark, which has given a King to Greece, an Empress 
to Russia, and a future Queen to the British Empire, 
may fairly claim to be one of the nerve-centres of the 
Continent. Nor can it be forgotten that in Thor- 
waldsen, Denmark has the supreme distinction of pro- 
ducing a sculptor whose work recalls the sculpture of 
ancient Greece. But there are hundreds of millions 
who have no opportunity of visiting Copenhagen, and 
to whom the genius of Thorwaldsen is but a thing they 
have heard but do not understand. The one name 
which is above every name among the sons of Den- 
mark, which is enshrined within the heart of every 
child in every land, is that of Hans Christian Ander- 
sen, whose fairy tales are the classics of every nursery, 



EUROPA 75 

and whose " Ugly Duckling " is one of the Birds of 
Paradise of the world. 

We may not agree with Victor Hugo in describing 
Paris as the Capital of Civilization, the City of Light, 
but Europe is unthinkable without France. The na- 
tion which for centuries was the eldest son of the 
Church, and which in 1789 became the standard- 
bearer of the Revolution, has ever played the fore- 
most role in European history. If in the last thirty 
years she has fallen from her pride of place, and no 
longer lords it in the Council Chamber, she is none 
the less an invaluable element in the comity of nations. 
The French novel has made the tour of the world, the 
French stage is the despair of all its rivals, and in 
painting and sculpture the French artists reign su- 
preme. There is a charm about the French character, 
a lucidity about French writing, a grace about France 
generally, to which other nations aspire in vain. 
France is the interpreter to the continent of ideas con- 
ceived in Germany or worked out in practical fashion 
in English-speaking lands. In all the arts and graces 
of life, especially in everything that tends to make the 
most of the body, whether in the food of it, the cloth- 
ing of it, or in the ministering to the universal in- 
stincts of the creature man, they leave the rest of the 
world helplessly behind. We English — a slow-witted 
race, who did not even know how to build a decent 
man-of-war until we captured one from the French 
and used it as a model in our dockyards — can never 
adequately acknowledge the debt which we owe to our 



76 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

neighbors. They preceded us in conquest round the 
world; they were the pioneers of empire both in Asia 
and America. But the supreme distinction of France 
in the commonwealth of nations to-day is seldom or 
never appreciated at its full significance. France is 
the one nation in the world which, fearlessly confront- 
ing with remorseless logic the root problems of the 
world, has decided apparently with irrevocable deter- 
mination that there are not more than thirty-nine mil- 
lions of Frenchmen needed as a necessary ingredient 
in the population of this planet. Other nations may 
increase and multiply and replenish the earth, but 
France has made up her mind that, having reached 
her appointed maximum, therewith she will be con- 
tent. Xo temptation, not even the continual multi- 
plication of the surplus millions of German fighting- 
men on her eastern frontier, nor the envy occasioned 
by the immense expansion of the English race over 
the sea, is able to tempt her to forsake her appointed 
course. TVhat is more remarkable is that this deter- 
mination can only be executed by asserting the right 
of will and reason to control in a realm that the 
Church, to which all French women belong, declares 
must be left absolutely to the chance of instinct on 
pain of everlasting damnation. France may or may 
not have chosen the better part; but the self-denying 
ordinance by which she deliberately excludes herself 
from competition with the multiplying races of the 
world has an aspect capable of being represented in 
the noblest light. 



EUROPA ?7 

France! heroic France! France of St. Louis and 
of Jeanne d'Arc, is also France of Voltaire and of 
Diana of Poictiers, of Moliere and Dumas, of Louis 
Pasteur and Sarah Bernhardt! What other nation 
has produced so many of the highest realized ideals of 
human capacity on so many different lines? Even 
now, when the nation that built Notre Dame and 
Chartres Cathedral has taken to riveting together the 
girders which make the Eiffel Tower, France is still 
France, the glory and the despair of the human race. 

Space fails me to do more than cast a rapid glance 
at the smaller States, each of which nevertheless con- 
tributes elements of vital worth to the great European 
whole. Much indeed might be said of Holland, that 
land won by spadefuls from the sea, protected by dykes 
and drained by windmills, in order to provide a level 
spot of verdure on which the most phlegmatic and in- 
dustrious of mortal men could rear a sober common- 
wealth under a regal shade, and which, before it be- 
came a kingdom, had bidden high for the Empire of 
the Indies. Sea-power, now the sceptre of our sove- 
reignty, was grasped by the Dutch before it was seized 
by the English. It was only in the last two hundred 
years that the Netherlands fell behind us in the race 
for empire. 

Belgium, once the cock-pit of Europe, is now the 
most crowded hive of human industry. In no State 
are more men reared per acre, nowhere does patient 
husbandry win larger crops from indifferent soil; 
while in forge and factory and in mine the Belgian 



78 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

workmen challenge comparison with the world. Bel- 
gian competition is pressing us hard in Russia, in Per- 
sia, and in many lands where Belgian goods were re- 
cently unknown. 

At the other end of Europe there is Greece — a 
name which, if nothing more than a name, is in itself 
an inspiration. The modern Greek, only too faithful 
an inheritor of many of the failings of his famous 
ancestors, has at least succeeded to the heritage of 
Olympus. No matter what may be his political feel- 
ings or his misfortune in war, the Greek is still the 
Greek, and behind the rabble rout of office-seekers 
which renders government impossible at Athens there 
still looms the majestic shades of those " lost gods and 
godlike men " which have kindled the imagination of 
our race since the days when Homer sang the tale of 
Troy divine. As the Acropolis is the crown of Athens, 
so Hellas was the crown of the world, and that crown 
neither Turk, barbarian, nor the place-hunting poli- 
tician of modern Greece can ever take away. The 
myths, the traditions, and the history of Hellas form 
the brightest diamonds in the tiara of Europe. 

Earth proudly wears the Parthenon 
As the best gem upon her zone. 

There remain to be noticed but two of all the band 
of nations whose States will form the European Union 
— England and Germany. These two Empires, which 
are at present sundered by a certain jarring dissonance 
that is all the more keenly felt because their tempera- 



EUROPA 79 

ments and ambitions are so much alike, are the Powers 
naturally marked out for promoting the complete real- 
ization of the ideal of the United States of Europe. 
Some months ago I took the liberty of describing the 
German Emperor as the Lord Chief Justice of Europe. 
It is a role which he alone is competent to fill. No 
other potentate on the Continent has either the en- 
ergy, the ambition, or the idealism capable of playing 
so great a role. Germany, which, after the travail 
of ages, has achieved her own unity, is of all the 
Powers the best fitted to undertake the leadership in 
the great work of completing the federation of Europe. 
Germany, also, from her central situation, is better 
placed than any other Power for undertaking the task. 
The traditions also of the Holy Roman Empire still 
linger around the Eagles of Germany, and the Empire 
is already the nucleus of a combination which places 
the forces of Central Europe, from Kiel to Brindisi, 
at the disposal of the Alliance. The Kaiser quite re- 
cently informed us that it is not his fault that more 
cordial relations have not been established between 
the Triple Alliance and France. As this is written he 
is about to visit St. Petersburg, when he will undoubt- 
edly endeavor to draw closer the ties which unite Ger- 
many to Russia. Should he succeed in his endeavors, 
the attainment of a practical federation of Europe 
without England would lie within his reach. 

But if Europe without France would be unthink- 
able, and if Europe without Germany would be 
Europe without the reflective brain and the mailed 



80 THE EM TED STATES OF EUROPE 

hand, what could we think of Europe without Eng- 
land? It does not become me as an Englishman to 
say much in praise of my own people. But this I may 
say, that Europe without England would be Europe 
without the one Power the expansive force of whose 
colonizing and maritime genius has converted Asia 
and Africa into European vassals and has secured the 
American and Australian continents as receptacles for 
the overflow of Europe's population. And this also 
may be added, that Europe without England would 
be Europe without the one Power whose sovereignty 
of the seas is nowhere exerted for the purpose of secur- 
ing privilege or favor for English flag or English trade. 
Nor must it be forgotten that Europe without Eng- 
land would be Europe without the one country which 
for centuries has been the inviolable asylum alike of 
fugitive kings and of proscribed revolutionists, the 
sea-girt citadel of civil and religious liberty, whose 
Parliamentary institutions have been imitated more 
or less closely by almost every civilized land. Europe 
without England would be Europe without her wings, 
a Europe without the sacred shrine where in every age 
the genius of Human Liberty has guarded the undying 
flame of Freedom. 

The Federation of Europe at the present moment is 
like an embryo in the later stages of gestation. It is 
not yet ready to be born. But it has quickened with 
conscious life, and already the Continent feels the ap- 
proaching travail. 

It has been a slow process. The great births of 



EUROPA 81 

Time need great preparations. Under the founda- 
tions of the Cathedral of St. Isaac at St. Petersburg 
a whole forest of timber was sunk in piles before a 
basis strong enough for the mighty dome could be 
secured. The Federation of Europe is a temple far 
vaster than any pile of masonry put together by the 
hands of man. In the morass of the past its founda- 
tions have been reared, not upon the spoils of the for- 
est, but upon generation after generation of living men 
who have gone down into the void from red battlefield 
and pest-smitten camp and leaguered city in order that 
upon their bones the Destinies might lay the first 
courses of the new State. Carlyle's famous illustra- 
tion of the Russian regiment at the siege of Zeidnitz, 
which was deliberately marched into the fosse in order 
that those who followed after might march to victory 
over a pavement of human heads, represents only too 
faithfully the material on which these great world 
fabrics are reared. 

Nor is it only the individuals who have perished by 
the million, in blind struggling towards they knew not 
what, which have supplied the substratum upon which 
the United States of Europe were slowly to be built. 
Political systems, laboriously constructed by the wis- 
dom of statesmen and minutely elaborated to meet the 
ever-varying exigencies of their day, royal dynasties 
and great empires have all equally been flung into the 
abyss like rubble, after having served their turn to 
make foundation material for that which is to come. 
In preparing great political events Nature works with 
6 



82 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

the same almost inconceivable patience and inexhaust- 
ible profusion that may be witnessed in the formation 
of the crust of the earth or in the evolution of a highly 
organized species. For, as Ibsen has said, Nature is 
not economical. And in the preparation of the foun- 
dation of Europe she has hurled into the deep trench 
so much of the finished workmanship of preceding 
ages as to provoke a comparison with the work of the 
barbarians, who made hearthstones of the statues chis- 
elled by the pupils of Praxiteles, and who utilized the 
matchless sculpture of the temples of the gods in the 
construction of their styes. 



PART II 

ENGLAND IN 1898 

CHAPTER I 

THE FASHODA FEVER 

When I returned to England from my visit to the 
Continent, I was assured by a member of the Admin- 
istration that the country had just passed through an 
outburst of " drunken Imperialism." The phrase, 
coming from such a conservative quarter, was very 
significant. Things must have been pretty bad before 
such a man in such a position could have expressed 
himself in such a fashion to a political opponent. And 
they seem to have been pretty bad, judging from the 
impression which the English newspapers produced 
upon those who read them abroad. To judge from 
the papers, and from the telegrams and letters in for- 
eign newspapers which professed to give information 
as to how things were going in England, they could 
hardly have been worse in the great orgie of Jingoism, 
when Lord Beaconsfleld was supposed to have brought 
back " Peace with honor " from Berlin. 

I left England on September 15th, when the news 

83 



84 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

had arrived of the presence of Marchand at Fashoda — 
news which was generally known, although not offi- 
cially confirmed. I came back immediately after the 
French Government had decided to recall him. I was 
therefore absent from England during the whole of the 
Fashoda fever, and my impressions of what took place 
during that somewhat excited period are necessarily 
the impressions of an onlooker from the outside. I 
saw England from the various foreign capitals with 
such lenses as were supplied by the telegrams in the 
foreign newspapers, and by the more or less belated 
English newspapers which followed me from place to 
place. Hence, whatever I say upon the subject must 
be taken, not as the judgment of one on the spot, who 
is on the inside track of things, but as a faithful ex- 
pression of how things looked to foreigners. 

The very day on which I left London I was assured 
by a prominent statesman, not in the Government, 
that we ought to be preparing for instant war with 
France. France had done " the unfriendly act," 
which, in diplomatic parlance, was equivalent to stat- 
ing that she had picked up the gauntlet flung down 
at her feet by Sir Edward Grey, speaking on behalf 
of the Rosebery Cabinet. Therefore there was noth- 
ing for it but to sound the alarum and prepare for 
instant excursions, invasions and war by land and by 
sea all over the world. Lord Salisbury was staying at 
Contrexeville, displaying, in the opinion of his im- 
patient censors, a criminal indifference to the peril of 
the Commonwealth. The night before I left Eng- 





Nadar, Paris 



M. 1HTPUY 



Nadar, Paris 

THE LATE TTiESTDENT FAUKE 





Walery, Pari* 
M. IIANOTAUX 



Nadar, Paris 



M. DELCASSE 



THE FAS HOD A FEVER 85 

land I talked with one of the persons who may be re- 
garded as perhaps the most directly responsible for the 
efficiency of our first line of defence. I asked him if 
he was preparing for instant war. He innocently 
asked, " With whom?" and on my replying, " France," 
he blandly answered, "Why?" When I said, 
" Marchand," he shrugged his shoulders. " Non- 
sense," he said, " Marchand is in the air; he will go 
away when he is told to. It is not serious; it might 
have been if the Khalifa had not been smashed, but 
as he is smashed, and Marchand lies in the hollow of 
our hand, it is nonsense to talk of war." Such were 
the opinions of an insider and an outsider — who 
would be recognized, if I were at liberty to give their 
names, as about the best authorities to be found in the 
country. 

With such opposing views of best authorities in my 
wallet, I crossed the Channel, to find the moment I 
put foot in Belgium, that the Fashoda question had 
temporarily obscured that of the Peace Rescript. The 
brave Belgians were all agog to know whether or not 
England and France were going to war. Apart from 
the interest which they naturally felt in such a con- 
tingency, arising from the fact that a conflict between 
England and France would probably extend to the 
Rhine, when they would have to stand to arms in order 
to prevent the violation of their neutrality by the 
contending French and Germans, there was a more 
personal reason why the Belgians were interested in 
Fashoda. They had been roundly accused in the 



86 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

English press of having connived at " the unfriendly 
act " of the French. 

The case against the Congo State, as briefly stated 
by an English statesman, was that Captain Marchand 
had been allowed to invade and occupy Fashoda from 
the territory of the Congo Free State, although the 
Congo Government had formally recognized, together 
with Germany and Italy, that Fashoda was within the 
British sphere of influence, and that the British Gov- 
ernment had publicly declared in the House of Com- 
mons that it would regard such an occupation as an 
" unfriendly act." 

To this the Belgians replied hotly, and very much 
to the point — firstly, that declarations made in the 
House of Commons as to the way in which one Power 
will regard the possible action of another Power do 
not amount to the establishment of a state of war be- 
tween these two Powers; and, secondly, that as long 
as no state of war exists, the Congo State is compelled 
by its constitution and the conditions imposed by the 
Powers to place no obstacle in the way of free transit 
through its territory. Further, they maintained that 
they had no knowledge of any intention of Captain 
Marchand to commit any unfriendly act by attempting 
to exercise any authority in any place within the Brit- 
ish sphere of influence, and it was therefore absolutely 
impossible for them to have stopped him. 

To this the objectors replied that the Congo Free 
State must have had a very shrewd notion of what 
Captain Marchand was up to, and that they ought to 




MAJOR MARCHAND 



THE FASHODA FEVER 87 

have given our Government a friendly hint as to what 
was going on. To this the Belgians answered tri- 
umphantly, " And how do you know that we did not? " 
That is a question which our Foreign Office alone can 
answer — the Foreign Office and the Queen. 

For everywhere and always when you begin to probe 
below the surface in foreign affairs, you come upon 
the all-pervasive, subtle, and beneficent influence of 
the Queen. The King of the Belgians, who is in fact, 
if not in name, autocrat of the Congo, may or may 
not communicate the secrets of that Empire to the 
British Minister at Brussels. But it is an open secret 
that there are very few affairs of state upon which it 
is not his invariable rule to avail himself of the privi- 
lege accorded him by the tradition of his family of 
taking counsel with her Majesty. Every week, it is 
said, whenever the King of the Belgians is at home, 
he follows the example of his father by writing to the 
Queen. The first Leopold was the political mentor of 
the girl Queen. The second Leopold, having one of 
the shrewdest political heads in Europe, has always 
appreciated the advantage of profiting by the counsels 
of the aged lady who is the Nestor of the Sovereigns 
of Europe. It is probable, then, they say in Brussels, 
that if the King knew, the Queen knew; and if the 
Queen knew, we may depend upon it that the Sirdar 
was not taken unawares when the news came about 
the white men at Fashoda. 

The King, who had just arrived from a yachting 
expedition to the Azores, in the course of which he 



88 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

met with a slight accident which compelled him to 
keep his room on his arrival at Ostend, preserved a 
diplomatic attitude of nescience. In reply to my in- 
quiry, I learnt that " His Majesty is totally ignorant 
of what has happened at Fashoda, and even whether 
anything has happened at Fashoda at all." The calm 
nonchalance with which the English assumed as a mat- 
ter of course that if Marchand was at Fashoda he 
would have " to git/' was a subject of amazement not 
unmixed with alarm. 

"But it is war you will be making! " they said. 
" War! " we replied. " What nonsense! You don't 
call it war when a picnic party caught trespassing is 
courteously assisted to find its way home." " Oh, 
you English! Was there ever such a people! " was 
the exclamation, and there the matter stopped. 

The French point of view, as stated to me repeat- 
edly, was that the Southern Soudan was a kind of Tom 
Tiddler's ground, which England had abandoned to 
anarchy. So long as anarchy reigned on the Southern 
Nile, no declaration made by under-secretaries could 
deprive France of the right which she possessed as a 
civilized Power of restoring law and order when it 
was within the range of her armed hand so to do. The 
French repudiated as utterly untenable the theory 
that the sovereign right of any Power to exert its influ- 
ence on behalf of civilization could be arbitrarily cur- 
tailed by the ipse dixit of Great Britain. Sir Edward 
Grey's warning had been promptly met by protest on 
the part of the French Foreign Office, and they main- 



THE FA8H0DA FEVER 89 

tained that we had no moral or legal right to treat the 
derelict province in the Southern Soudan as shut out 
from all civilized influence merely because of our sup- 
posed revisionary rights. But the very people who 
took this position most vehemently were equally frank 
in declaring that after the stricken field of Omdurman 
the Marchand expedition was an anachronism, and the 
sooner it disappeared the better. " There is no one, 
believe me/' said an eminent French journalist, who 
had excellent opportunities of knowing what he was 
talking about — " there is no one single Frenchman in 
the Government or out of it who does not know that 
after you reconquered Khartoum, Marchand's position 
became untenable, and the only question was how he 
was to be withdrawn. That is admitted on all hands; 
it ought not to be beyond the task of diplomacy to 
enable us to extract him without inflicting upon us a 
public humiliation. We made a false move and we 
admit it, and only wish to save our face." " And how 
can that be done? " I asked. " Oh, very easily/' he 
replied; " it can easily be arranged; a little pourboire! 
Delcasse's position is rather serious. If he were to 
retreat under menace, it might bring down the Gov- 
ernment, and we cannot afford to affront the Army 
by the public acceptance of any humiliation. We all 
heartily wish that Marchand had never reached Fa- 
shoda, but as he is there, we are equally anxious not to 
bring about a Ministerial crisis, or something that 
might be more serious than a Ministerial crisis, by our 
being compelled to eat humble pie. Eo, what is to 



90 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

be done is very simple. You can either ignore the 
Marckand expedition, regarding it as only a mission 
of civilization, which you are glad to welcome to the 
territory under your dominion, or you can grant 
Delcasse a little pourboire in the shape of some 
more or less empty concession anywhere you like all 
round the world, anything that would enable M. Del- 
casse to claim a diplomatic victory which would 
save his prestige with the country. At the same 
time you would get all that you want." So said 
my friend, expressing therein the feeling of his 
nation. 

In British official circles there seemed to be a gen- 
eral expectation that some such 'pourboire would be 
forthcoming, and that France would be let off cheap 
for having made a false move — " the unfriendly act " 
— just at the time when England had reestablished 
her prestige by smashing the Khalifa at Omdurman. 
On the other hand, there was a general expectation 
among the bystanders, especially the Americans, that 
the matter would not pass over so easily. " You may 
depend upon it," said one keen observer, " John Bull 
will take it out of the French this time, mark my words 
if lie does not. After all, human nature is human na- 
ture, and the old gentleman has stood so much, you 
can't blame him greatly, if having got the French in 
a corner, he gives them beans. Germany smacked 
your face in the Transvaal, Kussia wiped your eye at 
Port Arthur, the Turk has drawn a long nose at you 
in Constantinople, the French have been tricking you 





Russell and Son* 
SIR EDWARD GREY, M.P. 



Elliott and Fry 
rtoitt nox. jonx morley, M.P. 





Elliott and Fry Elliott and Fry 

RIGHT HON. H. II. ASQUITH, M.P. RIGHT HON. SIR nENRY FOWLER, M.P. 



TEE FAHEODA FEVER 91 

in Madagascar and worrying yon on the Niger — be 
sure John Bull will pay them out now, if only to set 
himself up again in his own conceit. Let the French 
out quietly — don't you believe it! They have got to 
be kicked down the front doorsteps with full musical 
honors.'' That, or something like it, was what my 
American friend said to me, and events, it must be 
admitted, subsequently justified his estimate of the 
situation. 

The one easy and obvious way out of the difficulty 
was for Sir Edmund Monson to have accepted M. Del- 
casse's assurance that Marchand was only a missionary 
of civilization, to have welcomed him with effusion, 
to have declared that one reason why we had recon- 
quered the Soudan was in order to open it up to such 
gallant explorers as Marchand, and to offer the adven- 
turous little man all the assistance which all civilized 
Governments are called upon to render to shipwrecked 
travellers who may be stranded upon their coasts. 
Such an assurance could have been given with suffi- 
cient ironical emphasis to give the French clearly to 
understand that we appreciated to its full extent the 
unfriendly nature of the act which launched Captain 
Marchand on his bootless expedition. It would also 
have asserted in the strongest possible terms the in- 
herent strength of our position, a strength so great that 
it was ludicrous to assume the possibility that half a 
dozen Frenchmen with a tricolor could possibly raise 
the Fashoda question by sitting down on a marshy 
island in the Nile under the cover of our guns, under 



92 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

the shelter of our flag, and under the authority of the 
Sirdar. 

An American Peace Commissioner, with whom I 
was discussing the matter in Paris, said that an infinite 
deal of nonsense was talked about this matter of the 
flag. " When I went to visit Mount Sinai I travelled 
with a cortege — bearers, escorts, etc. — and everywhere 
I always flew the Stars and Stripes. If the Sultan 
had been in a mind to pick a quarrel with me, he could 
have discovered that Uncle Sam was raising the Mount 
Sinai question because I had camped on the slopes of 
the famous mountain; but the Turk, not choosing to 
make a quarrel, ignored the flag, regarding it as the 
merely patriotic flourish of a traveller within his 
dominions. You could have done the same about 
Marchand if you had not wanted to pick a quarrel." 

When I went to Berlin, and from Berlin to St. 
Petersburg, I heard the same kind of talk always. By 
the time I reached Russia the Government had pub- 
lished Sir Edmund Monson's dispatches; and, to use 
the vulgar phrase, all the fat was in the fire at once. 
It was difficult on the other side of the Continent to 
follow all the details of things in England; but one 
fact stood out conspicuously — namely, that the fore- 
cast of the American observer had been a correct one : 
John Bull was about to compel the French to undergo 
public humiliation before Europe. The disadvantage 
of making the immense concession that a strolling 
Frenchman with a few yards of bunting could raise 
the Fashoda question seemed to have been overlooked, 



THE FASHODA FEVER 93 

compared with the advantage of having it out with 
the French. The Government having taken up this 
line, what could a patriotic Opposition do but support 
it? Nay, they rallied to the appeal all the more 
eagerly because of the opportunity which it afforded 
them of emphasizing their dislike of what they de- 
lighted to regard as the feebleness of Lord Salisbury's 
policy. Lord Rosebery led the way by a speech which 
showed that, although he had abandoned the leader- 
ship, he was still the leader of the Liberal Party. 
When he gave the word, great was the multitude of 
the preachers. Nearly every Liberal newspaper in 
the country wheeled into line, and of all the occupants 
of the front Opposition bench there was not one who 
ventured to dispute his authority. 

In discussing this extraordinary unanimity with a 
very clear-headed Liberal friend, after my return, he 
replied, " What other course could we take ? No 
doubt your phrase that we should treat Marchand's 
expedition as a picnic party and welcome him to the 
shelter and protection of the British flag was the 
simple, the natural, and by far the easiest way out. 
No one felt that more strongly than myself. But in 
order to avail ourselves of it, it was necessary that Sir 
Edmund Monson and Lord Salisbury should have 
taken that line from the first, and, as politely and iron- 
ically as possible, smothered with ridicule the prepos- 
terous idea that an explorer in difficulties could, by 
the mere process of setting up his tent on British ter- 
ritory, have raised any question about sovereignty, any 



94 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

more than if he had set up his tent on Dartmoor. But, 
unfortunately for us, the Government did not take 
that line. When they published Monson's dispatches, 
they made France the present of admitting that the 
Fashoda question had been raised, apparently for the 
purpose of driving them out of it. Under these cir- 
cumstances, what could a good patriot do? Surely 
nothing but what we did — namely, to insist that as 
Lord Salisbury had refused to take the short cut out, 
and had apparently made up his mind that the French 
had to be turned out neck and crop, the only thing 
that we could do was to bar the door against any more 
of those graceful concessions which would have made 
us ridiculous in the eyes of Europe and humiliated us 
before France. The fact was, the whole of the agita- 
tion in this country, from Lord Rosebery's speech 
downwards, instead of being a manifestation of confi- 
dence in the Government, was in reality the strongest 
possible illustration of the fact that we knew Ministers 
would not stand to their guns unless they were backed 
up from behind. If we had possessed a really strong 
Government, there would have been no need for 
bottle-holding them in the extraordinary fashion that 
was adopted; but, as we all knew our Salisbury, and 
knew that he would run away if he got the chance, it 
was necessary to adjure him by all our gods, every 
morning and every afternoon, that our unanimous 
opinion was backing him up, and that we would as- 
suredly trample him under foot if he tried on any 
more of his graceful concessions. Believe me," said 





Elliott and Fry 
THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY 



Elliott and Fry 

THE KT. HON. A. J. BALFOUR 




Elliott and Fry Elliott and Fry 

THE RT. HON. LORD ROSEBERY THE RT. HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN 



THE FAS HOD A FEVER 95 

my friend, " that is the verite vraie of the whole affair. 
We had got a weak, fumbling Government, one sec- 
tion of which was always threatening war, and the 
other half was always backing down. We had stood 
that kind of thing till we could stand it no longer. 
Then you must remember that the French had been 
very irritating. They were firmly convinced that 
under no circumstances would Lord Salisbury stand 
firm. You could not talk to the politicians and jour- 
nalists of Paris without feeling that they, one and all, 
had got the ingrained conviction that at the last mo- 
ment Lord Salisbury's love of peace would overpower 
all other considerations, and he would give way rather 
than fight. So we upheld him, and barred the door 
in such a way behind him, that with the best will in 
the world he was shut up to war if the French refused 
to budge." That, no doubt, is the true explanation 
of the extraordinary rally of the Opposition, headed 
by Lord Rosebery, in support of an Administration 
concerning whose foreign policy each and all of the 
said " rallied," beginning with Lord Rosebery, had 
expressed publicly and privately their utter distrust 
and contempt. 

The effect of these tactics on the Continent, so far 
as it came under my observation, was to create the 
impression that the English were spoiling for a fight, 
that they had France on the hip, and they knew it, 
and were determined to force her to accept the grim 
alternatives — Back Down or Fight! A friend of 
mine to whom I had written from St. Petersburg ask- 



96 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

ing what cliance there was of a national movement in 
favor of the Peace Conference, replied : " Yonr letter 
finds this city in a ferment," (he was writing on Octo- 
ber 15th), " and all our people pouring oil on flame, 
which makes my heart half sick, half hot. A cry for 
the Tsar's policy or for peace to-day would only drive 
the swine more violently down the steep. But the 
day will soon come for a deliverance." Three weeks 
later, I received another letter from London, dated 
November 4th, in reply to a suggestion that something 
should be done to back up the Peace Conference in 
England. " Back up the Conference, you say ! But 
I tell you the British lion is roaring at his loudest. I 
have never seen the noble brute so intractable; you 
must wait until the fever has passed out of the acute 
and delirious stage. I feel that this will not last. 
Lord Salisbury is the only man in England for your 
purpose, and he is blase and sceptical. He ought to 
take John Bull by the throat; nobody else can! The 
Liberal Party is wholly useless — a fearful saying, but 
true." 

When I got to Constantinople, I found that the 
general impression among the English there was en- 
tirely in accord w T ith the estimate which I had formed 
of the situation in St. Petersburg; that is to say, they 
believed that an amount of fanfaronade had been 
made, apparently in order to force an open door, but 
really to force France to fight. Private letters from 
London showed that, however far Ministers and the 
responsible leaders of the Opposition might be from 



THE FASHODA FEVER 97 

desiring so great a crime, there were undoubtedly 
many among those who gave impulse and momentum 
to the public movement who were passionately bent 
upon forcing on war. As one correspondent put it, 
" We are never likely to have such a chance again for 
settling old scores with France. It would be a thou- 
sand pities not to smash her, now we have got the 
chance." The chance, of course, consisted in the fact 
that the Russian Government was publicly committed 
to a policy of peace, that the raw which had existed 
for some years between London and Berlin had been 
healed, at least on the surface, that France was dis- 
tracted by the passions excited by the Dreyfus case, 
and that the inferiority of her fleet was so notorious 
that the immediate result of a declaration of war would 
have been the disappearance of the French flag from 
the ocean. 

When, in 1878, Lord Beaconsfield, having failed 
to fight his three campaigns against Russia for the 
deliverance of his friend and ally the Turk, made war 
on Afghanistan, a Liberal leader made a sarcastic re- 
mark which the recent clamor of the war party in 
England forcibly recalls to my mind. A gentleman 
was out driving one day, when his horse suddenly 
bolted and dashed frantically down the street. " Can't 
you stop him? " said the owner to his coachman. 
" No," said the Jehu, " he has got the bit between his 
teeth." " Then," said the gentleman philosophically, 
" take care and run into something cheap ! " Last 
year France was alone, France was weak, France was 
7 



98 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

distracted by internal troubles; therefore she was 
cheap enough to run into. And so all the barbaric 
tomtoms of the unregenerate Jingo were set beating; 
and Alfred Austin, who may be regarded as medicine- 
man and witch-doctor, crisped the British lion's mane, 
and made him roar to his heart's content. To out- 
siders, who looked at the matter across the Continent, 
this blatant bellicosity of the public seemed somewhat 
cowardly, with too much of " hit him because he's 
down " in it altogether to minister to the self-respect 
of the self -regarding Briton abroad. But to others 
wmo approached it from a different standpoint the folly 
of it seemed even more conspicuous than its meanness. 
For, the moment it was known that Russia would not 
support the French in going to war about Fashoda, it 
was certain that France would yield, and all this tre- 
mendous pounding of heavy artillery secured for us 
no permanent advantage. Fashoda was in our hands, 
for the French occupation was an occupation pour 
rive. When France gave way, she abandoned noth- 
ing that she could possibly have maintained; whereas, 
the kicking of her downstairs with musical honors, 
while it gave us nothing that was not in our possession 
before we started, was not calculated to make France 
more easy and accommodating in dealing with us in a 
cause when she had a stronger case both in letter and 
in fact. In other words, the French would have gone 
out of Fashoda quietly if we had given them a little 
pourboire; whereas, now that we have insisted upon 
kicking them out publicly in the presence of the ser- 



THE FASHODA FEVER 99 

vants, the pourboire will have to be much larger. We 
may object, and swear that we shall never, never, never 
give any pourhoire; but all negotiations are matters of 
give and take, and we may depend upon it the recent 
performance of the British lion has not been of a na- 
ture to make France more amenable to reason, or more 
desirous of straining a point in order to come to an 
amicable understanding with us on other questions 
where she is better able to hold her own. 

When I came to Rome I found that opinions varied. 
Among our countrymen there were those who gave 
full expression to the feeling that it was high time to 
teach these French a lesson, and that we had been put 
upon so much that we should now put our foot down 
and show that we could fight, and so forth; while 
others were impressed by the frightful possibility of 
the general war which seemed to be so lightly hazarded 
by the war-mongers of the press. One acute observer 
said to me, when we were discussing this question 
under the shadow of the Quirinal, " It has been a 
great deliverance. You may not believe me, but I 
am firmly convinced that no power in Italy could have 
held the Italian people back from declaring war on 
France the day after the first French fleet had been 
swept from the sea. Any Ministry that attempted 
to check such a movement would have been swept 
away at once. The Italians would have felt that their 
chance had come, and they would have struck in a 
moment at their hated foe." This may be so, or it 
may not; but that the contingency was believed to be 



100 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

not only possible, but probable, and even certain, 
was a grim reminder of the gigantic issues which trem- 
bled in the balance when our Government decided to 
reject the picnic-party solution, and elected to compel 
France, on risk of war, to atone for her " unfriendly 
act " by formally evacuating Fashoda. 

The theory that John Bull has been bested every 
time for years past in his negotiations with his neigh- 
bors, and that in the struggle for existence and the 
scrimmage for the world he has been badly worsted, 
is one of those delusions which seem to indicate that 
a morbid hypochondriasis has taken temporary posses- 
sion of a part of our people. There is one, and only 
one, region in which there are alarming signs of our 
not being able to hold our own. But, character- 
istically enough, this one serious danger is entirely 
ignored by those who are most prompt to sound the 
alarm. The notion that the statesmen and sovereigns 
of the Continent form their estimate of the fighting 
capacity of the British from the bellowing claque of 
London newspapers is one of the most extraordinary 
delusions that ever possessed the public mind. If any- 
thing were required to convince the Continental mind 
that English newspapers are utterly worthless, even 
as reporters of what is actually going on in their own 
country, there could hardly be a more striking instance 
than has been supplied by this Fashoda incident. For 
weeks, nay, for months, the British newspaper press 
stuffed its columns with the most alarming accounts 
of the feverish activity that prevailed in all our ar- 



THE FASHODA FEVER 101 

senals and dockyards. Every day brought forth new 
reports of fresh preparations for instant war. It was 
mobilization here, there and everywhere. The whole 
land seemed to be reverberating with the clangor of 
preparations for war. Again and again I was asked 
by most intelligent foreigners how many millions 
we had spent in making ready for war. I always 
shrugged my shoulders and said that I did not believe 
that the expenditure would exceed a hundred thousand 
pounds. The whole affair was a gigantic mise-en- 
scene, a game of bluff, played out to the end with 
astonishing intrepidity and nerve by gentlemen of my 
own profession, who felt it necessary to beat the big 
drum in order to keep their Government up to the 
mark. The utter amazement with which this explana- 
tion was received led me to justify the faith that was 
in me by two very important facts which had escaped 
public attention. One was that the Chief Constructor 
of the Navy, the man who has designed all our modern 
battleships, and who is the one man of all others whose 
presence would be indispensable at Whitehall were 
there any real question of the expenditure of millions 
on the Navy, was quietly enjoying his two months' 
holiday on Sir George Newnes's dahabeeyah on the 
Nile. The other was that the head of the Victualling 
Department, instead of working double tides at Ports- 
mouth in order to make ready for war, was placidly 
enjoying his holiday under the sunny skies of Italy. 
No one believed me. They were quite certain that 
we were pouring out millions like water in order to 



102 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

make ready for war. It was not, therefore, without 
a certain grim satisfaction that I noticed, when I ar- 
rived in Paris, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
had found it necessary to make public statement of the 
fact that, so far from having spent millions, the extra 
expenditure upon all the amazing manifestations of 
activity which our newspapers had reported had only 
amounted to £50,000, chiefly incurred in replacing 
the stocks of coal which had been depleted owing to 
the strike in South Wales. After such an anti-climax, 
our newspapers will have to beat a very big drum a 
very long time before any one abroad takes rat-tat-too 
seriously. 

The fact, of course, is that our Navy does not re- 
quire any tremendous expenditure in order to prepare 
it for war. The story goes that Yon Moltke, after 
having dispatched his famous telegram, " K?*ieg, 
mobil!" that launched the German armies upon Im- 
perial France, was found by a friend amusing himself 
placidly as if nothing had happened. When his friend 
expressed his amazement, Moltke replied, "Everything 
has been arranged, mobilization is being carried out, 
there is nothing more at present for me to do." So 
it is with every well-equipped army or navy, and all 
this preternatural parade of fluster and fidget is an 
evidence, not of strength, but of weakness, a confes- 
sion of unreadiness, not the calm composure of con- 
scious strength. 

Looking at England and the manifestations of Eng- 
lish public opinion from abroad, it seemed as if the 



THE FASHODA FEVER 103 

country were suffering from a bad attack of fidgets. 
The element of John Bull's strength in times past has 
been due to the fact that he has been exceedingly 
tough, with a very robust faith in his own integrity 
and his own strength. The idea of good old John 
Bull caring a single straw for all the pin-pricks of his 
envious rivals is inconceivable. He cared no more 
for these things than his bovine prototype for the 
croaking of frogs in a marsh. But of late there seems 
to have grown up an astonishing school of hysterical 
patriots who imagine that they show their devotion to 
their country by the vehemence with which they bel- 
low when any puny Frenchman pricks them with a 
pin or with a pen. It would do these gentlemen good 
to see a bull-fight in Spain. It might teach them, if 
they were capable of understanding anything, that the 
whole art and mystery of circumventing the bull is to 
make him mad by pin-pricking him till he loses his 
self-possession. Then he rushes down upon the sword 
of the matador. The angry bellowings, the pawing of 
the sand of the arena, the tail-lashing, and the savage 
and fatal final rush upon his tormentors, reproduce, 
only too faithfully, the way in which many of our 
journalists would conduct the foreign policy of Eng- 
land. In the hubbub of Fleet Street and the cheers 
of the music-halls these considerations are often lost 
sight of; but nevertheless it is equally true of nations 
as of individuals, " in quietness and confidence shall 
be your strength." If our Navy had been weak, there 
might have been some excuse for endeavoring to make 



104 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

up for our feebleness by the shrilly outcries and bar- 
baric war whoop of the savage. But as our Navy is 
strong enough to sweep any possible adversary from 
the seas, it would be more sensible, to say nothing of 
being more Christian, if our Mohawks would spend 
less time over their war-paint, and cease to make night 
and day hideous by their yells. 

Of course, I shall be roundly assailed for saying 
monstrous things, in thus stating how the recent out- 
burst of English feeling appeared to an Englishman 
travelling abroad. But the fact is as I have stated it. 
I shall be told, no doubt with perfect truth, that noth- 
ing was further from Lord Salisbury's mind and will 
than a war with France. That is undoubtedly true. 
In the sanity and sober sense of the Prime Minister 
the Empire has found a strong refuge from the vio- 
lence of the Jingo faction. Neither would I for a 
moment assert that any responsible statesman, whether 
Liberal or Conservative, deliberately played for war, 
although most of them seemed to have taken the risk 
of war with a very light heart. 

But it is not there that the mischief lay. When it 
was decided to publish Monson's dispatches, and prac- 
tically to appeal for a patriotic demonstration against 
France, the Ministers called a spirit from the vasty 
deep to serve their purpose which they might have 
found it very difficult to cope with when they wished 
to dispense with its assistance. To excite the war pas- 
sion in a people so warlike as the English is a crime 
against civilization, which can only be justified, as 



THE FASHODA FEVER 105 

homicide is justified, by absolute necessity. The oc- 
casion was tempting and the moment propitious for 
such an appeal. The Sirdar with his victorious troops, 
fresh from the reconquest of the Soudan, had arrived 
in England in the midst of the Fashoda fever. Not 
even the most envious rival could deny that Sir Her- 
bert Kitchener had displayed in an eminent degree 
the great administrative and military qualities which 
have enabled men of our race to build up the British 
Empire. He had fought and won two great battles 
against a savage foe, and he had reestablished British 
authority in the city of the Soudan which will be for 
ever associated with the greatest humiliation inflicted 
on England in our time. There was, therefore, ample 
explanation of the enthusiastic welcome with which 
he was received at home. At the same time, those 
who saw things from the outside could not help a cer- 
tain feeling of regret at the lack of perspective dis- 
played in the extraordinary demonstration with which 
the Sirdar and his men were received. What more 
could have been done to mark our national gratitude 
and esteem if he had been Wellington returning from 
a ten years' death-grapple with the Despot of the Con- 
tinent ? Here, again, there was visible that absence of 
dignity and reserve which used to be so characteristic 
of our people. The almost Roman triumph which was 
accorded to the Sirdar naturally ministered to the pas- 
sions which made a certain section of our people fall 
an easy prey to their besetting sin. Hence there 
sprang up many who openly and constantly talked of a 



106 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

war with France. " "Now is our chance; we should be 
fools to miss it. We shall never have such an oppor- 
tunity again of settling with her once for all." 

Shortly after my return, I was in the editorial office 
of a well-known newspaper, where we were talking 
about peace and war. The editor remarked that he 
was almost the only person on his staff who had not 
wanted to have " a slip into France," and appealed for 
confirmation to his assistant, who remarked that nine 
out of ten persons whom he met even then (this was 
at the beginning of December) were much disap- 
pointed that we had not " had it out with France." 
" You must be keeping very bad company," I re- 
marked. " Not at all," he said; " I go in and out of 
the City a great deal, and certainly that is the impres- 
sion that I gain from what I hear from the people I 
meet." " The City! " I exclaimed; " but the City of 
London, whenever a war fever is in the air, is one of 
the worst places in the world. Don't you know that 
when a war fever breaks out the devil always sets up 
his headquarters in the City? He has another favorite 
haunt — the clubs of Pall Mall; and he divides his time 
between the two." " Yes," said the editor, " and as 
he goes from one to the other, he must of necessity 
pass most of his time in Fleet Street." The observa- 
tion was just, for of all energetic children of the 
devil the London pressman, like the journalist of 
Paris, when the cannon-thunder is in the air, is about 
the worst. It was so in 1878; it has been so in 1898. 
I was repeating this conversation to a well-known pub- 



THE FASHODA FEVER 107 

lie man, who smiled and added : " Yes, no doubt ; the 
Evil One spends much of his time in perambulating 
Fleet Street; but he always has a chop and a cup of 
tea in Printing-house Square." 

It won Id be an interesting subject for discussion as 
to how far the spectacle of the easy victories won by 
our American kinsfolk over the Spanish fleet tended 
to create, or at any rate to strengthen, this ground- 
swell of the lower passions of the English nature. Cer- 
tainly, it seemed somewhat unnatural to English- 
speaking men on this side of the sea that English- 
speaking men on the other side of the sea should have 
won great sea-fights, and mopped up the navies of a 
moribund Latin Empire, while we, with the greatest 
fleet in the world, were standing by with folded arms, 
enduring the taunts of the boulevard press. The Old 
Adam is strong in the average Briton. His fingers 
began to itch for a fight, and the talk that has gone on, 
the echoes of which were still audible when I returned 
to England, showed an unmistakable readiness on the 
part of many of our people to fight, with or without a 
justification, should an opportunity arise, especially 
when it was what, in the slang of the street, might be 
regarded as " a sure thing." 

This readiness on the part of our people to fight for 
mere fighting's sake is much better appreciated on the 
Continent than it is in England. At home we plume 
ourselves so greatly upon our love for peace, that many 
of us have actually come to the conclusion that John 
Bull when seen from abroad is a huge, fat, overgrown 



108 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

sheep. Nothing could be further from the reality of 
things. A Russian poet once called us " the gray wolf 
of the Northern Seas/' and that phrase embodies accu- 
rately enough the impression of other European na- 
tions as to our real character. We may hate war, but 
we have made more wars in the last fifty years than all 
the other nations put together. They might be little 
wars, but, nevertheless, they were wars. The chances 
that an English soldier will see action and kill his man 
are very many times greater than that a similar fate 
will befall any soldier on the Continent. As for am- 
bition and aggression, there is not, in the opinion of 
Europeans, any Power in the universe that is so im- 
perious and so aggressive as Great Britain. Of course, 
we repudiate this indignantly, but the cynical and 
sceptical foreigner shrugs his shoulders, and replies, 
" To begin with, you claim as your natural birthright 
the dominion of the seas — that is to say, two-thirds at 
least of the planet belong to you in fee simple. Next, 
if you look round the world, you will find that you 
have snapped up every bit of the land that is worth 
having either for colonizing or for trade. You have 
taken all the vantage spots of all the continents, and if 
any one of us ventures to pick up any of your leavings, 
there is immediately a howl raised throughout the 
English-speaking world, and imperious demands are 
made that you must immediately take something else, 
in order to balance our pickings. The net result is 
that though you started with much more territory 
abroad than all of us put together, you have gone on 



THE FASHODA FEVER 109 

multiplying your additions until there is practically 
nothing left for other people. As for Russian aggres- 
sion, of which you are always talking, it is indeed a 
case of Satan reproving sin. In the last fifteen years, 
for every square mile of territory which Russia has 
annexed, you have annexed a hundred, and we might 
multiply that by a thousand if you were to take into 
account the spheres of influence which you have 
established." * 

Yet, notwithstanding all this, which is no overstate- 
ment of things as they are, nothing is so common as 

* Speaking on this subject when he resigned the Liberal 
leadership, Lord Rosebery said: "You have acquired so 
enormous a mass of territory that it will be years before you 
can settle it, or control it, or make it capable of defence, or 
make it amenable to the arts of your administration. Have 
you any notion what it is that you have added to the Em- 
pire in the last few years? I have taken the trouble to make 
a computation which I believe to be correct. In twelve 
years you have added to the Empire, whether in the shape of 
actual annexation, or of dominion, or of what is called the 
sphere of influence, 2,600,000 square miles of territory. But 
just compare these figures. It will show you more clearly 
what you have done. The area of the United Kingdom' — 
England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the Channel Islands, and 
so forth— is 120,000 square miles. Therefore, to the 120,000 
square miles of the United Kingdom, which is the heart of 
your Empire, you have added in the last twelve years 
twenty-two areas as large as that of the United Kingdom 
itself. That marks out for many years a policy from which 
you cannot depart if you would. You may be compelled to 
draw the sword — I hope you may not be — but the foreign 
policy of Great Britain, until this territory is consolidated, 
filled up, settled, and civilized, must inevitably be a policy 
of peace." 



110 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

to find in English newspapers perpetual lamentations 
over the extent to which we have lost our position in 
the world, owing, be it remarked, to our meekness, our 
patience, our unwillingness to fight, and scrupulous 
observance of our neighbors' landmarks! 

I remember once being visited by a poor woman 
whose mind was diseased, and who came to inform me 
of a great and terrible disaster that had overtaken her. 
She referred to it in terms of such unaffected horror, 
that it was some time before I could induce her to tell 
me the nature of the terrible evil from which she was 
suffering. At last it came out. Owing to the machi- 
nations of a certain enemy of hers, who had practised 
his foul arts in order to injure her, the whole of her 
inside was undergoing a mysterious change by which 
it was being transformed into the inside of a dog. 
Nothing that I could say could persuade her that she 
was mistaken. To arguments and to ridicule she was 
utterly impervious; she knew that her inside was be- 
coming a dog's inside, and the process would soon be 
complete, unless something — she did not know what 
— could be done in order to break the spell and restore 
her to her natural condition. I have often thought 
of this poor lunatic when reading English papers. 
They seem to imagine that, by some marvellous magi- 
cal incantation of some wizard of peace, the whole of 
the interior of honest John Bull is being converted 
into the " innards " of a sheep. They are possessed 
with the idea, the thought of the transformation which 
they are undergoing has got upon their nerves, and in 



THE FAtSHODA FEVER 111 

order to counteract it they are continually clamoring 
for something to be done, some sabres to be rattled, or 
some drums to be beaten, or volleys to be fired. Not 
unless the cannon-thunder sounds in their ears, morn- 
ing, noon, and night, can they be persuaded that they 
are not becoming the sheep of their imagination. 
It is a mental malady and a very distressing one, 
especially for their neighbors, who know that John 
Bull, so far from being a sheep at heart, is in reality 
one of the most pugnacious, self-assertive entities 
that the world contains. He is only too reckless 
with his fists, and only too regardless of his neighbors' 
toes. 

Side by side with this pugnacious element, which 
is ever prompt to respond to outward stimulus, there 
is another characteristic of our people which is even 
more unlovely. There is, after all, a certain amount 
of heroism in the spectacle of a man who, in a good 
cause or ill, is willing to go forth and kill or be killed 
in support of his country's cause. But that element 
of greatness is absolutely absent from those who 
clamor for war much as the Roman mob clamored for 
gladiatorial games in the amphitheatre. Papers are 
dull unless there is some fighting going on somewhere ; 
therefore, " the war for our money." Our people have 
not the conscription, and the people who write in the 
newspapers, as the Emperor of Russia once somewhat 
bitterly and sarcastically remarked, " are never sent 
to fight in the first line." It is now as it was when 
Coleridge wrote: — ■ 



112 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Secure from actual warfare, we have loved 
To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war! 
We — this whole people — have been clamorous 
For war and bloodshed; animating sports, 
The which we pay for as a thing to talk of, 
Spectators, and not combatants. 

All the while that our people have been surrender- 
ing themselves to the unholy passion of military glory, 
and revelling in the thought that they were strong 
enough to whip France, and, in conjunction with the 
United States, to rule the world, they have been ob- 
livious to the real danger which threatens our suprem- 
acy, nay, even our very existence as a nation. We 
are the workshop of the world; we do not grow food 
enough in our island to feed our people for more than 
one-third or one-fourth of the year. We earn our 
daily bread, literally in very real fashion, by the fact 
that we are able to command the markets of the world 
by the excellence of our manufactures, the skill of our 
workmen, and the cheapness with which we produce 
our goods. This is the base, the solid foundation of 
our Imperial grandeur. If the factory and the work- 
shop are not busy, neither army nor navy would be able 
to keep us in existence. Yet each of the three great 
conditions upon which our commercial ascendency 
rests is threatened without the mass of our people giv- 
ing it even a thought. Whether it is in the excellence 
of our manufactures, the skill of our workmen, or in 
the economy of our methods of production, we are 
losing our premier position. Although we have been 
extending our Empire and pegging out claims for 



THE FASHODA FEVER 113 

future colonies and dependencies with the utmost per- 
tinacity and courage, the tell-tale statistics of our for- 
eign trade remain obstinately silent as to the com- 
mercial benefits which we have gained therefrom. A 
thousand pin-pricks, such as those which so irritated 
our journalists, are as nothing compared with the one 
portentous fact that for the last ten years our trade 
has practically remained at a standstill. The trade 
of Germany has increased; the trade of the United 
States has gone up by leaps and bounds, until it has 
now taken the first place in the world's records. But 
our trade remains stationary. Instead of concentrat- 
ing our attention upon the removal of the causes which 
have enabled our competitors to beat us in our own 
markets, and gradually to threaten us with extinction 
in the neutral markets, we have fretted and fumed 
about prestige and " open doors " to impasses, and we 
know not what. The real weakness is that of the 
heart and the brain — of the interior, not of the remote 
extremities. We have grown too comfortable to exert 
ourselves and to hold our own in the real struggle for 
existence, which is waged, not in the battlefield, but 
in the markets of the world. We spend millions over 
armaments, and grudge thousands for education. We 
send military expeditions to the uttermost ends of the 
world, but grudge the expense requisite to make any 
careful or systematic use of the money which we de- 
vote for the promotion of technical education. Our 
trade is periodically paralyzed by insensate disputes 
between masters and men, the idea being that as it 



114 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

was said that France was rich enough to pay for her 
glory, so we are rich enough to afford to play ducks 
and drakes with our business. For the moment all 
goes well; there is a boom in trade; the cry of the 
unemployed is no longer heard in our streets. But 
booms are temporary; depression follows inflation as 
night follows day, and then there will be an evil look- 
out for our people and for our country, unless our 
statesmen are wise betimes, and, turning their atten- 
tion from the barren competition of armaments and 
of conquests, are, in the words of Count Muravieff, 
" to utilize for productive purposes the wealth which 
is now exhausted in a ruinous and, to a great extent, 
useless competition for increasing the powers of 
destruction." 



CHAPTER II 



THE CHINESE PUZZLE 



The causa causans of my visit to Russia was not 
the Peace Rescript, which, at the time when I decided 
on my journey, had not appeared. My real objective 
was quite other than that. Ten years before, at the 
close of my audience with the late Emperor Alexander 
III., he invited me to return to Russia to see him 
again, should relations between Russia and England 
threaten to become strained. During his lifetime 
there was no occasion to act upon this invitation, but 
in the midsummer of this year it seemed as if the occa- 
sion had arisen which, ten years before, had been dis- 
cussed as a conceivable but regrettable possibility. 

Until the last year or two the one great source of 
difficulties between England and Russia was the slow 
decay of the Ottoman Empire. The difficulty of har- 
monizing our clashing interests, or what were believed 
to be clashing interests, in the east of Europe has suf- 
ficed for the last twenty years to employ the energies 
of the diplomats of London and St. Petersburg. Of 
late, the troubles of Turkish origin have steadily 
diminished. Russia under Prince Lobanoff went far 
in the direction of adopting the policy of Lord Bea- 



116 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

consfield, by which the maintenance of the indepen- 
dence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire was 
treated as the interest of a civilized European Power. 
On the other hand, Britain, under the influence of Mr. 
Gladstone's enthusiasm, and the ever-increasing force 
of facts, had gone far towards adopting the traditional 
policy of Russia as protector of the Christians of the 
East. But neither country was sufficiently at home 
in its exchanged role to feel firm enough on the new 
ground to adopt any policy likely to bring them into 
collision in the Levant. When the Armenian atroci- 
ties reached their acute stage, the divergence of opin- 
ion between the two countries came to. a head. But 
England was not sufficiently Gladstonian nor Russia 
sufficiently Beaconsfieldian for either Empire to push 
its views to such an extreme as to endanger the general 
peace. So the Armenians were sacrificed, and Abdul 
chortled in his joy over the paralysis of Europe, and 
blessed Allah for the efficient protection of Prince 
LobanofT, who was not ashamed to wear on his Musco- 
vite bosom a decoration which he received from the 
Great Assassin. But just when the good people who 
were willing to sacrifice hecatombs of Eastern Chris- 
tians for the sake of a quiet life were congratulating 
themselves upon the fact that peace reigned in Ar- 
menia, another question rose in the Further East 
which threatened to revive and accentuate the differ- 
ences between the two Empires. The rivalry of diplo- 
matists, which had almost died out at Stamboul, shot 
up into new and intenser activity in Pekin. The Sick 



THE CHINESE PUZZLE 117 

Man of Europe ceased to command attention, for the 
eyes of the world were turned to the Sick Man of Asia, 
whose demise appeared to be rapidly approaching. 

It was a false alarm, but for the time it lasted it was 
all the same as if it were true. Our experience of 
Turkey might have taught us to take the crisis in 
China a little more philosophically. At any time dur- 
ing this century the acutest observers of men and af- 
fairs at Constantinople have expressed their opinion 
that the Sick Man was very sick, sick even unto death. 
Sick he was, no doubt, and sick unto death; but his 
death was not yet. Over and over again has been re- 
peated the warning which, nevertheless, we are con- 
stantly forgetting, that old empires which have lasted 
for hundreds of years are much too toughly put to- 
gether to go to pieces like a pack of cards before the 
first flip of a hostile finger. Threatened empires, like 
threatened men, live long. Generation after genera- 
tion of ardent souls have lived and died in the fervent 
faith that that great edifice of iniquity which the Otto- 
man horde reared upon human skulls and watered by 
human blood was about to pass away and defile the 
world no more; but the last year of the century finds 
the Turk still in possession of Stamboul, still lording 
it over the heritage of the Christian East, still living, 
and likely to live until all those who wish him dead 
and gone have themselves been gathered to the vast 
majority. 

^Notwithstanding this great object-lesson as to the 
tenacity of life in old-established empires, the British 



118 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

public no sooner heard that the Chinese Government 
was sick, and very sick, than they incontinently 
jumped to the conclusion that the Sick Man of Asia 
was going to die, and that we must bestir ourselves if 
we wished to obtain a share of his intestate estate. As 
a matter of fact, the Yellow Man may be sick, but he 
is very far removed from the door of death. The co- 
hesion and unity of that vast conglomerate of human- 
ity which stretches from Siberia to Burma, and from 
the Yellow Sea to Turkestan, depends far more upon 
the moral influence of its Government than upon the 
material nexus of armies and navies and police ; and a 
moral influence once firmly established over four hun- 
dred millions of men is far too deeply rooted to be 
pulled up like a garden weed by the finger and thumb 
of a victorious Power. Eo doubt the Chinese cut a 
very poor figure in the war with Japan. Their fleet 
vanished from the sea, their army was defeated in 
every battle, and they were compelled to cede to the 
victorious Japanese whatever their victor chose to de- 
mand. When the war was over, the Japanese found 
themselves in possession of the two great strongholds 
of Wei-Hai-Wei and Port Arthur, and all the world 
hailed them as the rising Power of the Far East. The 
blow to Chinese prestige in Europe and America was 
immense, but in China itself the loss of the fleet and 
the cession of the northern fortresses affected the dim 
myriads of yellow men in China about as much as the 
trimming of a man's beard affects his digestion. Prob- 
ably ninety-nine out of every hundred never so much 



THE CHINESE PUZZLE 119 

as knew that a war had taken place, and those who 
had heard the rumor of hostility are probably to this 
day in a state of blissful ignorance as to which Power 
triumphed in the fray. The moral authority of the 
Government at Pekin remains as supreme — with 
never a soldier to back it or a gunboat to fly its flag — 
as it was before the war broke out. 

All this was forgotten and ignored even by those 
who should have known much better. The Russians, 
it must be admitted, showed a sounder appreciation of 
the tenacity of Chinese vitality than did the other 
Powers. With the aid of Germany and France they 
cleared the Japanese off the Asiatic mainland and re- 
stored the territorial integrity of China. There the 
matter might have remained without any complication 
arising had it not been for the uncontrollable outburst 
of the colonial fever in Germany. The opportune 
murder of some German missionaries in the province 
of Shantung afforded the German Emperor a welcome 
pretext for seizing a portion of Chinese territory. 
Before seizing Kiao-Chau he cautiously approached 
the Russian Emperor by tentative inquiries behind 
which his real object was carefully concealed. Russia 
had the right of anchoring her warships in the port of 
Kiao-Chau. Would the Emperor object if Germany 
were to share that privilege? ~No direct answer was 
given at first, but ultimately it was understood that 
Russia would have no objection to share that privilege 
with Germany. So the first preliminary was gained. 
The second preliminary was to ascertain whether 



120 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Russia would have any objection to Germany's exact- 
ing reparation for the murder of her missionaries. 
The offhand answer was returned : " Certainly not. 
Russia could have no objection to the exaction of a rep- 
aration." With these two assurances, one relating to 
the anchoring of German ships in the harbor of Kiao- 
Chau, and the other to the exaction of reparation for 
the murder of German missionaries, the German Em- 
peror made his great coup. Kiao-Chau was seized 
and occupied, at first under the pretext of demanding 
reparation for the murder of German missionaries. 
Not until afterwards was it revealed that the repara- 
tion demanded included the leasing or virtual cession 
of the province of Kiao-Chau to the German Emperor. 
It is believed, and even to this day it is sometimes 
asserted, that the action of Germany in seizing Kiao- 
Chau was prearranged beforehand with Russia. Noth- 
ing could be further from the fact. The seizure of 
Kiao-Chau under the mask of a demand for reparation 
for the murder of German missionaries was, and is, 
bitterly resented in Russia as a bit of sharp practice 
of which they have ample ground to complain. So 
intense, indeed, was the irritation created by the mere 
suspicion of the German design, that I was told in 
Berlin a telegram had been dispatched to Shanghai 
countermanding Admiral Diedrichs's orders. Unfor- 
tunately the Admiral had sailed before the telegram 
arrived, and Europe was confronted with the fait 
accompli of the German occupation of Kiao-Chau. 
Nothing could have been more opposed to the wishes 



THE CHINESE PUZZLE 121 

of Russia. Russia's policy was the maintenance of 
the integrity of the Chinese Empire. In defence of 
that integrity the Japanese at the very end of a vic- 
torious war had been compelled under virtual threat 
of war to clear out of the Liaotong Peninsula ; and now 
one of the Powers by which the integrity of China had 
been vindicated against the Japanese became herself 
the aggressor and despoiler of Chinese territory. If 
at that time Russia and England had but been on 
cordial terms of mutual confidence, it is probable that 
concerted action on the part of all the other Powers 
would have compelled Germany to discover that her 
occupation of Kiao-Chau was temporary and would 
cease the moment the Chinese paid compensation for 
the murdered missionaries. Unfortunately the Pow- 
ers all mistrusted each other, and concerted action was 
regarded as out of the question. Even without con- 
cert the question was considered as to whether or not 
Russia should insist upon the evacuation of Kiao- 
Chau; and it was only when, upon grave deliberation, 
it was decided that Germany would not clear out with- 
out a war, that it was resolved at St. Petersburg to 
acquiesce in the inevitable and seek compensation else- 
where. The Russians may have been right, or they 
may have been wrong in their belief that the Germans 
could not have been turned out without a war. If 
they were right, no one can doubt that in their own 
and in the interest of the general European peace they 
did well to swallow the bitter mouthful and make the 
best of it. It is indeed difficult to believe that the 



122 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

German Emperor or the German people would have 
accepted the frightful risk of a European war in order 
to persist in seizing a port on the Chinese littoral. But 
it is only just to admit that the opinion arrived at by 
the Russians as to the impossibility of turning the 
Germans out of Kiao-Chau except by a war was shared 
by the best authorities in Europe. 

Rightly or wrongly the Russians decided that it was 
not worth while to risk a war for the sake of Kiao- 
Chau; but it was felt that the action of Germany had 
materially changed the situation. It was no longer 
possible to maintain formally the integrity of China. 
That integrity had been violated by the " mailed fist " 
which had seized possession of Kiao-Chau. Germany 
had established herself in force, if not within striking 
distance, at least within easy proximity to Pekin. The 
example of the ease with which the Chinese could be 
plundered by any one who chose to pick their pockets 
was likely to prove contagious. No one knew what 
would be the next step. The signal once having been 
hoisted for the partition of China, it was felt at St. 
Petersburg that any day might bring the news of a 
fresh seizure of Chinese territory. 

If by some exercise of imagination we could realize 
the conception of England which has been formed by, 
let us say, the King of Uganda, we should probably 
find that it would compare not unfavorably with the 
conception which the British public has formed about 
Russia. To the King of Uganda England is an en- 
tity, a unit. England's policy, whether for peace or 



THE CHINESE PUZZLE 123 

for war, for annexation or for evacuation, is to him 
the expression of a single will. He does not discrim- 
inate between Liberals and Conservatives, between 
Government and Opposition. He knows nothing of 
those details which are imperceptible from a great dis- 
tance. Hence he has probably strange ideas concern- 
ing the vacillations, inconsistencies and bad faith of 
the Power with which he has to do. In the same way, 
while we speak about Russia, we imagine the great 
Empire of one hundred and twenty millions as a unit. 
"We speak of its Government as if it were the will of 
a single man being brought to bear continuously upon 
the problem in question. In reality the Russian Gov- 
ernment, like every other state, is a composite body. 
It is swayed from time to time by opposing tendencies 
which find their embodiment not in parties so much 
as in ministerial groups, which make themselves more 
or less articulate exponents of the contending drifts of 
sentiment. Hence there is often an appearance of 
vacillation or of inconsistency, and sometimes of down- 
right bad faith, which would be perfectly understood 
if we could but abandon what may be called the " King 
of Uganda' 7 point of view in considering Russian ques- 
tions. The way in which the Chinese question was 
dealt with after the seizure of Kiao-Chau is an appo- 
site illustration of the inadequacy of the Uganda 
method for appreciating what actually happened. As 
soon as the German flag was hoisted over Kiao-Chau, 
the Russians with one consent believed that the one 
thing which they dreaded more than anything — a 



124 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

scramble for the inheritance of the Sick Man of Asia 
— was about to begin, and their eyes turned instinct- 
ively to the one great Power whose armed force, con- 
stantly mobilized on a war footing, hovered within 
striking distance of Port Arthur. 

Strange though it may seem to Englishmen who 
alternately plume themselves upon the pharisaical vir- 
tue with which they abstain from picking and stealing, 
and display a Nebuchadnezzar-like pride in having 
picked out all the plums from the world's pie, the Rus- 
sians are firmly convinced that whenever there is a 
scramble for any corner lots in the universe, John Bull 
is dead sure to be first on the spot. Now there is one 
particular corner lot in China which the Russians 
could not and ought not to allow to pass into any other 
hands than their own. This particular corner lot in 
question was Port Arthur, with the related port of 
Talienwan. Port Arthur and Talienwan stand in 
pretty much the same relation to each other as the 
Spithead ports, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight 
stand to the docks of Southampton. Talienwan is the 
only ice-free port through which Russia can obtain 
access to the Pacific at all seasons of the year. It was 
therefore absolutely necessary for the future develop- 
ment of their vast Siberian Empire that the port of 
Talienwan should be available as the terminus of their 
great trans-Continental line. The reasonableness of 
this opinion had been publicly recognized by Mr. Bal- 
four, who, in a famous speech, had declared that so far 
from England's having any objection to Russia's ob- 



THE CHINESE PUZZLE 125 

taining an ice-free port in the Pacific, nothing was 
more to be desired in the interests of British trade than 
that Russia should have such a port, and the British 
Government therefore regarded her natural ambition 
to have a port in ice-free waters with satisfaction and 
approval. The Russians naturally took note of this 
declaration with much satisfaction; and inasmuch as 
Talienwan was the only ice-free port along that coast, 
they regarded Mr. Balfour's speech as being equiva- 
lent to a virtual handing over of Talienwan to the Rus- 
sian Government, whenever the railway had made suf- 
ficient progress to justify a demand for the cession of 
such a position on the coast. Here the Russians may 
have been mistaken or they may not. Mr. Balfour's 
words seemed to them sufficiently explicit ; and no one 
who reads them to-day can marvel that the Russians 
took them to mean exactly what they seemed to say, 
for it is no use pretending that when you invite an- 
other Power to " have " a port, you mean that she is 
simply to enjoy in common with all the other Powers 
a right of way through a port belonging to someone 
else. It is well to bear this in mind, because it is the 
key to much, if not to everything, that happened in 
the spring of last year. 

When the German flag was hoisted over Kiao-Chau, 
opinion in the Russian capital was divided. One sec- 
tion, which may be regarded as having its headquarters 
in the Foreign Office, held that it was absolutely neces- 
sary for the preservation of Russia's vital interests for 
her to forestall the attempt to seize Port Arthur on the 



126 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

part of any other Power. This school maintained that 
England was certain to seize Port Arthur either di- 
rectly herself or indirectly through the Americans or 
the Japanese. In any case, Port Arthur was much 
too valuable a jewel to be left lying about loose, with 
the signal flying from Kiao-Chau for the general 
scramble. That was the view of one school. An 
altogether different opinion prevailed in the section 
which had as its centre and head the Ministry of Fi- 
nance. Here it was maintained that Lord Salisbury 
could be relied upon not to seize Port Arthur, and that 
Mr. Balfour, when he made his famous declaration as 
to the right of Russia to an ice-free port, was speaking 
in good faith, and meant exactly what he said. They 
maintained, therefore, that seeing the right of Russia 
to Talienwan had been recognized by England, and 
that Port Arthur was to all intents and purposes an 
integral part of Talienwan — for Port Arthur was un- 
tenable with Talienwan in other hands — it was better 
to let things remain as they were, to trust to England's 
declarations and to still hold on to the old formula of 
the integrity of China despite the inroad upon that 
integrity which had been made by Germany. This 
school violently opposed the occupation of Port 
Arthur. They contended that to occupy such a posi- 
tion would make Russia a partaker in the guilt and 
responsibility of the partition of China, the prevention 
of which had been the steady aim of Russian policy. 
They maintained that to occupy Port Arthur would 
set two signals flying, instead of one, for the partition 




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TEE CEINESE PUZZLE 127 

of China, and would challenge the other Powers, not- 
ably England, to join in the game of grab. It was 
further insisted upon with great force, and, as the re- 
sult proved, with truth, that it would be impossible to 
take possession of Port Arthur without having to 
square the Japanese, and that this could only be done 
by the abandonment of Russia's vantage ground in 
Korea. Further, the railway was not built, and 
would not be built for some years, during which the 
status quo might remain. To occupy Port Arthur 
would at once make Russia vulnerable. It would en- 
tail an enormous expenditure, which the Treasury 
could ill afford, for arming of the ports, and a still 
more gigantic outlay in the building of a great Pacific 
fleet. In addition to all those arguments they had 
another, and perhaps the most powerful of all, in re- 
serve. " The Chinese," they said, " will bitterly resent 
our occupation of Port Arthur, and they will confound 
us with the Germans as the despoilers of their Empire. 
Our strength throughout the whole of the Chinese 
Empire depends upon our moral influence with the 
rulers at Pekin. Our position at Pekin is not weak- 
ened, but rather strengthened by the jealousy and sus- 
picion excited against Germany by the seizure of Kiao- 
Chau. Therefore let us severely abstain from any 
tampering with Chinese integrity. Let us emphasize 
our determination to maintain the integrity of the 
Chinese Empire against all comers. Let us push for- 
ward the construction of our railways, strengthen our 
commercial interests in China, and rely upon the good 



128 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

faith of England to save ns from the dangers of see- 
ing Port Arthur and Talienwan pass under the con- 
trol of another European State." 

The balance of opinion at St. Petersburg was 
strongly in favor of this view. The Emperor for some 
time kept an open mind, with strong predispositions 
in favor of what may be regarded as the views of M. 
"Witte as against those of Count Muraviefr*. This was 
natural for many reasons. He had travelled in the 
East. He had no sympathy whatever with the earth- 
hunger which seems to possess some people like a con- 
suming passion. He wished to leave the Chinese 
alone. He deprecated anything that would lead him 
into collision with England. He was even painfully 
anxious to avoid saddling his treasury with any fur- 
ther expenditure for armaments and munitions of war. 
All the cards seemed to be in favor of the victory of 
Witte and the discomfiture of Muravieff. Unfor- 
tunately the whole scene was changed, and changed 
not so much by the action of the British Government 
as by the steps taken on their own initiative by the 
British Admiral and the British Ambassador. The 
Admiral acted innocently, never dreaming what mo- 
mentous results would follow from the orders which 
he had given. It is, alas! impossible to say as much 
for the action of the Ambassador. 

As will be seen from what has been said of the argu- 
ments of the contending schools of Russian statesmen, 
it was essential for the success of the non-annexation- 
ists that England's good faith should be undisputed, 



THE CHINESE PUZZLE 129 

and that there should be no doubt whatever as to the 
honesty of Mr. Balfour's declaration in favor of Russia 
having an ice-free port, which could only be Talien- 
wan, to which Port Arthur was a mere corollary. On 
the other hand, the annexationists were keen to lay 
hold of any sign that would seem to prove the insin- 
cerity of the English Government, and to pounce upon 
anything that looked as if we were trying to wriggle 
out of Mr. Balfour's assurances. 

It was at this particular juncture that the Admiral 
commanding the British fleet on the Pacific stations, 
" being moved thereto of the devil," as the old legal 
phrase goes, bethought him that it would be well to 
order some of his ships to call at Port Arthur in the 
course of their cruise round the Chinese littoral. 
This was well within the authority of the Admiral in 
command, nor did he in the least imagine when the 
ships were ordered to take up their station for a time 
at Port Arthur that any political significance would 
be attached to their arrival in the port. So little im- 
portance did he attach to the matter that he made no 
report on the subject, and neither asked, sought, nor 
received permission from the Government at home. 
He sent the ships to Port Arthur as he had previously 
sent ships to Kiao-Chau, and as he would send them 
to any other port where he could find safe anchorage. 
Such, at least, is the positive declaration of the British 
Government, which we, of course, implicitly believe. 
It can easily be imagined with what feelings the news 
of the arrival of British warships at Port Arthur was 
9 



130 . THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

received in St. Petersburg. The intelligence dis- 
mayed the non-annexationists and filled the annexa- 
tionists with joy. "We told you so!" the latter 
cried exultingly, and immediately proceeded first to 
press their suspicions on the mandarins at Pekin, and 
then at St. Petersburg to point triumphantly to 
the presence of the ships as proof positive of our bad 
faith. 

Our Ambassador, Sir Nicholas O' Conor, who was 
then, with the best intentions in the world, working 
hand-and-glove with the non-annexationist section, 
anxiously inquired as to why the ships were sent there, 
and, apparently as one result of his telegrams acquaint- 
ing the Government with the exaggerated importance 
attached to the presence of these vessels, he received 
and transmitted to the Russian Government assurances 
as to the non-political nature of the visit of the ships, 
which may be found in the Blue Book. Meantime, 
the ships having stayed their time, sailed away, but 
the mischief which they had done lived after them. 
Still, the removal of the ships gave fresh heart to the 
non-annexationists, who renewed the battle; and they 
might have won the day, had it not been for the fatal 
move of Sir Claude MacDonald, our Ambassador in 
Pekin — a move which no attempt has ever been made 
to reconcile with ordinary good faith. The only ex- 
cuse that is possible is almost inconceivable. It is 
difficult to imagine that the British Ambassador at 
Pekin was unaware of the fact that Mr. Balfour had 
publicly declared that the British Government en- 




Elliott and Fry 
SIR CLAUDE MACDONALD 

Ambassador at Pekin 



Elliott and Fry 
LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTOX 
Viceroy of India 





Elliott and Fry 
TIIE HON. W. P. SCTIREINER 
Premier of Cape Colony 



Tuple y, Ottawa 
LORD ABERDEEN 
Retiring Governor-General of Canada 



TEE CHINESE PUZZLE 131 

tirely approved of Russia having an ice-free port in 
the Pacific. Yet, except on that hypothesis, it is dif- 
ficult to acquit the British Ambassador of an act of 
deliberate treachery infinitely worse than the worst 
that could be charged against Count MuraviefL 

For what did he do? First, no sooner did he find 
that the Chinese Government was in difficulty about 
the negotiation of a loan, than he went to the man- 
darins at Pekin and offered to secure them a British 
loan on various conditions, one of which was that 
Talienwan (which, he was careful to explain in his 
telegram home, was the only ice-free port) should be 
made into a treaty port. The mandarins at once ob- 
jected that Russia would never agree to this; but Sir 
Claude MacDonald insisted. " Why should the Rus- 
sians object," he asked, " unless they had designs 
which, if they objected to his proposal, would then be 
unmasked? " But there was no need for unmasking 
their designs. Their designs, if one may call them 
so, were frankly avowed and had been publicly en- 
dorsed and approved by Mr. Balfour, the Leader of 
the House of Commons and First Lord of the Treas- 
ury. The Russians regarded their claim to have 
Talienwan as a matter that had passed beyond the 
pale of controversy. It had been virtually made over 
to them, whenever they wanted it, by Mr. Balfour on 
behalf of the British Government; and yet, with this 
assurance fresh in their minds, they were suddenly 
confronted with the spectacle of the British Ambas- 
sador at Pekin endeavoring by the promise of a British 



132 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

loan to bribe the Chinese Government into cheating 
them out of the indispensable port. 

When this became known in St. Petersburg, the 
annexationists triumphed all along the line. Who 
could trust the English after that? Count Muravieff 
also, being anxious, it was said, to immortalize his 
family by bringing Russia to Port Arthur, as another 
Muravieff had brought Russia to the Amur, is said to 
have worked upon the Chinese by assurances more 
emphatic than accurate to induce them to request the 
Russians to occupy Port Arthur lest it should be 
seized by the English. The "Chinese refused, but in 
such a way as to give Muravieff a colorable pretext for 
representing to the Emperor that the Chinese implored 
him to take Port Arthur. After this last coup the 
fate of Port Arthur was sealed. 

I have entered at some length into this question, be- 
cause it bears directly on the charge which is brought 
against Russia of having deceived us in the course of 
these negotiations. When the fate of Port Arthur 
was still in the balance, questions were asked at St. 
Petersburg as to the presence of Russian ships of war 
at the port, and we were assured that they were only 
there for winter quarters. This statement is con- 
stantly brought forward as a proof of Russian decep- 
tion. But the fact is that if we had not thrown the 
whole game into the hands of the annexationists, the 
ships would only have been there for winter quarters, 
and would have left Port Arthur in the spring. The 
rampant Jingoism of certain sections of our press and 



TEE CEINESE PUZZLE 133 

the bad faith of Sir Claude MacDonald rendered it 
impossible for the non-annexationists to hold their 
ground, so that what would in all probability have 
been only a sojourn for the winter, was converted into 
a definite occupation. 

Then came the question whether or not Talienwan 
should be a free port or an open port. There was a 
misunderstanding on the English side, which is ad- 
mitted in the dispatches, owing to Lord Salisbury's 
having mistaken the clear and definite statement made 
by M. de Stael that the port would be "open " as equiv- 
alent to its being " free." For that, however, the Rus- 
sians are admittedly in no sense to blame. Before it 
was leased to the Russians, Talienwan was not open to 
trade. The immediate result of leasing it to the Rus- 
sians was to open it to trade, subject to the provisions 
of the Treaty of Tientsin, by which the import duty 
was fixed at a maximum of seven per cent. Having 
gained this point, if therewith our Ministers had been 
content, a great deal of trouble would have been 
avoided. But unfortunately, from excessive zeal Sir 
Mcholas O' Conor deemed it necessary to raise the fur- 
ther question as to whether or not Port Arthur should 
also be an open port. Now from the public declara- 
tions of Her Majesty's Ministers, Port Arthur cannot 
be made a commercial port. It is essentially a mili- 
tary and naval position, corresponding to the Spithead 
ports and the Isle of Wight; and satisfactory answers 
having been given as to Talienwan, which corresponds 
to Southampton, there was neither sense nor reason 



134 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

in declaring that Port Arthur should also be declared 
an open port. Unfortunately, however, instead of 
pointing this out, assurances were given of the readi- 
ness to make it open, which the Russians afterwards 
took back. Instead of justifying this taking back of 
their promise, which they could perfectly well have 
done on the ground that Port Arthur, according to 
Lord Salisbury himself, could not be made into a com- 
mercial port of any kind, MuraviefT made statements 
which, if not intended to mislead, were, to say the 
least, very unfortunately phrased. From this mis- 
understanding, of which I have heard many explana- 
tions, none of Avhich seem to me either conclusive or 
satisfactory, there sprang a popular belief that the 
Russians had wilfully deceived us, although what con- 
ceivable advantage they could have derived from such 
deception has never been clearly pointed out. The 
disadvantage was obvious enough. The Ministerial 
papers, almost without an exception, fumed and 
foamed and published day after day attacks upon the 
Government to which at last Lord Salisbury yielded, 
and ordered the occupation of Wei-Hai-Wei. Thus 
the third step was taken towards the partition of the 
Chinese Empire. 

The advantage to England of the occupation of 
Wei-IIaiAVei still remains problematical. The dis- 
advantages are obvious. To Germany it has been no 
doubt a gain that we should have thrust ourselves into 
a position which makes us partners with them in the 
partition of Northern China, partners who, however, 



THE CHINESE PUZZLE 135 

are precluded by our own voluntary protestations from 
attempting to derive any commercial advantages from 
the position. The only defence that was made was 
that it was necessary to advertise to Japan and the 
other nations that we were not out of the running, and 
that if Germany and Russia seized Chinese territory, 
we also were willing and able to take a part in the same 
game. It is stated — I cannot say with what authority 
— that the balance of naval authority was distinctly 
against taking Wei-Hai-Wei, and up to the present 
fortunately there has been no expenditure to speak of 
in the way of fortifying or garrisoning the place of 
arms over which our flag flies. Wei-Hai-Wei remains, 
and it is sincerely to be hoped will long remain, a place 
(Parmes, as worthless for Imperial purposes as that 
other place cVarmes in the Mediterranean, the filching 
of which, under the cover of the Anglo-Turkish Con- 
vention, is an indelible blot upon the good faith of 
Great Britain. 

The irritation produced by these various seizures of 
Chinese territory can easily be imagined. The Rus- 
sians said little but did much — that is to say, they 
fortified and garrisoned Port Arthur, and produced a 
naval programme at the beginning of last year which, 
if carried out, would entail the expenditure of twenty- 
four millions sterling in six years in the building of 
a great Pacific fleet. Of this twenty-four millions, 
ten millions were allocated for the construction of ships 
in their own dockyards, and in France, Germany and 
the United States. The remaining fourteen millions 



136 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

sterling, which are also to be spent before the end of 
1905, have not yet been allocated, but it is part of 
the programme officially announced at the beginning 
of last year, which was prepared as the necessary and 
natural corollary of the occupation of Port Arthur. 

Throughout the whole of the discussions on the 
Chinese question, no exception can be taken to either 
the tone or the matter of the speeches of Lord Salis- 
bury and Mr. Balfour. No such compliment, how- 
ever, can be paid to the utterances of Sir Michael 
Hicks-Beach and Mr. Chamberlain. It was Sir 
Michael Hicks-Beach who first spoke openly of main- 
taining our position, if necessary, by war. But his 
indiscretion was thrown into the shade by the outburst 
of Mr. Chamberlain, who in a famous, or infamous, 
speech virtually called Russia a devil with whom it 
was impossible to come to any understanding or to 
come to any agreement. This was the famous " long- 
spoon " speech, which had at least one good result. It 
revolted even those who most sympathized with the 
anti-Russian feeling, and brought down upon Mr. 
Chamberlain reproofs which were all the worse to bear 
because he knew them to be so well deserved. 

The popular conception of Mr. Chamberlain is erro- 
neous in many points, and in none so much as that 
which paints him as a man of strong convictions and 
of resolute purpose. Mr. Chamberlain in reality is 
a creature of impulse. He is a man of strong feelings, 
and when he feels strongly he speaks strongly. One 
of his colleagues, when explaining and apologizing 



THE CHINESE PUZZLE 137 

for the " long spoon " speech, maintained that it really 
was an outburst of offended affection. Mr. Chamber- 
lain, to do him justice, has always been a great advo- 
cate of a good understanding with Russia. At the 
time when Mr. Gladstone seemed to be heading full 
swim for war with Russia over the Penjdeh affair in 
1885, Mr. Chamberlain was almost, if not quite, alone 
in the Cabinet in maintaining that war was neither 
necessary nor expedient. u We are going to war all 
round the world on a pin's point/' he is said to have 
remarked to Mr. Gladstone. Eo one was better 
pleased than Mr. Chamberlain when the result proved 
that war was not only unnecessary but impossible, 
Germany and Austria having informed the Sultan 
that he was on no account to allow our fleet to pass the 
Dardanelles and the Bosphorus; and the Ameer of 
Afghanistan having informed Lord Dufferin at the 
same time that he would not on any account allow 
British troops to pass through Afghanistan to attack 
the Russians in Central Asia. When Mr. Chamberlain 
forswore his allegiance to Mr. Gladstone and went 
over into the Tory camp, he carried with him not only 
his thrall, Mr. Jesse Collings, and the whole Chamber- 
lain clan, but he also carried among his impedimenta 
his belief that an understanding with the Russians 
was both possible and desirable. In Council he had 
always advocated the establishment of an understand- 
ing with Russia, and hence when the negotiations 
about Port Arthur came to their unfortunate ending, 
he went off in a tangent in the opposite direction, and 



138 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

in an outburst of temper declared that we would need 
a very long spoon if Ave were to sup with the Russians. 
It was only " pretty Fanny's way/' and thoroughly in 
accordance with the methods and manners of the new 
diplomacy, of which he is the patentee and sole pos- 
sessor of author's rights. I suppose Mr. Chamberlain 
would allege in self-defence, first, that he never ade- 
quately realized the extent to which Sir Claude Mac- 
Donald's attempt to convert Talienwan into a treaty 
port was inevitably regarded by the Russians as a 
scandalous breach of good faith on our part. The 
significance of the fact that Talienwan was the only 
ice-free port in that region through which Russia could 
have access to the sea may have escaped him. He fur- 
ther has the characteristic John Bullish belief that 
when you get mad the best thing to do is to swear at 
large. It blows off steam and relieves internal pres- 
sure to give your adversary a piece of your mind. 
That may be all very well for the individual citizen; 
but Mr. Chamberlain should never have forgotten that 
he was a Minister of the Crown, and in that capacity 
was bound to reduce the exuberance of his natural 
disposition within the limits of diplomatic propriety. 

When matters were in this troublous state, a further 
difficulty arose concerning the railway from Pekin to 
Neuchang. The Russians, whatever faults they may 
have had, and whatever mistakes they may have made 
in the conduct of their diplomacy in the Far East, can 
certainly not be accused of any reticence, reserve, or 
dissimulation as to the objects of their policy. They 



THE CHINESE PUZZLE 139 

had, even before Port Arthur was taken, frankly 
avowed their objection to see any other European 
Power establish political influence in Manchuria. 
They had further made arrangements with the Chinese 
Government which precluded them from making any 
concessions giving political influence to any European 
Power within what they considered to be the sphere 
of their interest. The attempt made at Pekin in the 
interest of the concessionnaires who are financed by 
the Shanghai Bank, to obtain a concession for a rail- 
way to Neuchang, brought our Government face to 
face with the Russians. No sooner was it announced 
that the concession was to be granted than the Russians 
objected, the Chinese recoiled, and there was another 
outburst on the part of the Russophobist Jingo party 
against the interference of the Russian Government 
with British enterprise. The Russians said little but 
stood firm. The concession was inconsistent with the 
agreement which the Chinese had previously con- 
cluded with the Russians, and it had to be cancelled. 
Thereupon there was great ululation in the Jingo 
camp, and Lord Salisbury was abused in all the moods 
and tenses for making another of the graceful con- 
cessions which it was declared had made British policy 
a by-word for weakness and imbecility. As a matter 
of fact, Lord Salisbury could not help himself, for the 
Chinese had merely promised us a concession under 
pressure, which was incompatible with the agreement 
into which they had previously entered with the Rus- 
sian Government. Finally, after a good deal of angry 



140 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

altercation, the Russian objection was sustained. Brit- 
ish money was to be used in the construction of the 
railway, but provision was taken to prevent the em- 
ployment of British capital being used as the lever for 
the establishment of a British imperium in imperio 
in Northern China. 

While the situation was in this strained state, mat- 
ters were made worse by various stories as to the con- 
cession of a railway running from Pekin southwards 
towards the Yang-tse-kiang valley which was financed 
by the Russo-Chinese Bank, and was held to be the 
mere stalking-horse for the extension of Russian polit- 
ical authority into a region which we had marked out 
for ourselves. 

I should have mentioned before that in the struggle 
between Russian and British diplomacy at Pekin, Eng- 
land had gained an extension of territory on the main- 
land opposite Hong Kong, and also had secured con- 
cessions for the opening of the Yang-tse-kiang valley 
to foreign vessels, which, in the opinion of those best 
competent to judge, counterbalanced a hundred-fold 
all the commercial advantages the Russians were likely 
to gain for twenty years to come in Manchuria. 

The British Government had also secured the still 
more important concession which went further towards 
creating an imperium in imperio in the Chinese Em- 
pire than all the other concessions put together. For 
a long time past the customs of the Chinese Empire 
have been under the control of Sir Robert Hart, who 
was Inspector-General of Customs. Sir Robert Hart's 



THE CHINESE PUZZLE 141 

appointment, however, was purely personal. His sta- 
tus last year was changed by the arrangement arrived 
at between Great Britain and China, which not only 
secured Sir Robert Hart's position, but established the 
principle that his successor must be an Englishman, as 
long as the trade of Great Britain in China exceeded 
that of any of her competitors. All these advantages, 
however, seemed to the excited assailants of Lord Salis- 
bury as mere dust in the balance compared with the 
occupation of Port Arthur by Russia and the pruning 
of the concession of the JNeuchang railway. 

Hitherto it had been the established custom of the 
British Foreign Office not to lend the diplomatic sup- 
port of Great Britain to concession-hunters in China 
or elsewhere. It was Prince Bismarck who first be- 
gan the practice of using his Ambassadors as commer- 
cial travellers, and of employing the resources of Im- 
perial diplomacy in order to deflect orders to German 
firms. After struggling for some time against the 
clamor of the Ministerial press the Government gave 
way, and announced that they would support against 
Russia the Chinese Government's grant of any con- 
cession to a British subject. Mr. Gladstone called the 
Anglo-Turkish Treaty of 1878 "an insane conven- 
tion," but it was sanity itself compared with an under- 
taking which practically left it in the power of the 
Chinese Government to force us into a war with Rus- 
sia whenever it suited the policy of the mandarins to 
embroil her two great European neighbors. When 
things reached this pass, I thought it was about time 



142 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

that I recalled the suggestion made by the late Em- 
peror, and that I should proceed to Russia for the pur- 
pose of ascertaining, if possible, what the Russian 
Government was really driving at, and whether there 
was any possibility of clearing up misunderstandings 
and of ascertaining the real drift of events in the Far 
East. 

Before I started, however, matters began to mend, 
and negotiations — the " long spoon " notwithstanding 
— were begun between the Russian and the British 
Governments, the basis of which was the delimitation 
of their respective spheres of interest. The under- 
standing suggested by the Russian Foreign Office, and 
favorably considered by Great Britain, was that Britain 
should regard the province of Manchuria as lying en- 
tirely within the Russian sphere of interest, subject to 
the understanding that Talienwan was to be an open 
port, that no preferential duties were to be charged, 
and that all goods were to be admitted subject only to 
the maximum duties laid down in the Treaty of Tien- 
tsin. By this arrangement the door of Talienwan 
would be opened as wide as that of any other treaty 
port in the world ; British capital could be as fairly in- 
vested in Manchuria as in any other part of the Chinese 
Empire, but no concessions carrying political influence 
were to be sought by us in Manchuria. In return for 
this concession the Russians suggested that the valley 
of the Yang-tse-kiang should be regarded as the Brit- 
ish sphere of interest; and that they on their part would 
abstain from pushing for any concessions carrying 



THE CHINESE PUZZLE 143 

political influence in the Yang-tse-kiang valley. The 
valley of the Yellow River, which lies between Man- 
churia and the Yang-tse-kiang, was to be a happy 
hunting-ground for the concessionnaires of both Em- 
pires — a kind of intermediate buffer State or sphere of 
interest, which would be common to both Empires. 
The matter did not go beyond diplomatic conversa- 
tions, in which the proposals put forward by the Rus- 
sians were not unfavorably considered by the British 
Government. 

Matters were in this state when, to the immense 
astonishment of every one, the Tsar's Rescript ap- 
peared, like a bolt from the blue sky. It was so 
utterly unexpected that, when one distinguished Rus- 
sian diplomatist was told by a friend what he had read 
in the papers, he put it down to the crass stupidity of 
his acquaintance, who, he thought, had probably 
mixed up some proposal for the disarmament of Cre- 
tan insurgents with a general proposal for an arrest of 
armaments. He was by no means alone in the amaze- 
ment which the Emperor's sudden initiative created 
throughout the ranks of diplomacy, both Russian and 
foreign. 

The publication of the Rescript gave at once a new 
objective to my tour. I had first merely intended to 
make a short trip to St. Petersburg, and to come back 
at once. But the Emperor by this time had gone to 
Livadia. It was the accident of his being in the 
Crimea that first suggested to me the idea of making 
the tour of Europe. I had never been further south 



1U THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

than Toula in Kussia. I had never visited either the 
Balkan Peninsula or Austria-Hungary. I therefore 
decided to extend and enlarge my original design, and 
instead of merely going to see the Emperor, I pro- 
jected the tour round Europe which I subsequently 
carried out. Some of the first impressions of this run 
through the future Continental Commonwealth are 
embodied in the subsequent chapters. 



CHAPTER III 



HISPANIOLIZATIO^ 



The most conspicuous event in the history of 1898 
was undoubtedly the sudden apparition of the United 
States on the field of world politics. It had long been 
foreseen as inevitable, but when the moment struck, 
the unanimity and enthusiasm with which the whole 
American nation rushed its Government into war 
startled the onlookers, especially those who had paid 
little attention to the development of American Im- 
perialism. It is tolerably safe to say that, outside 
Great Britain, there were very few persons who were 
in the least degree prepared for the outburst of 1898; 
and even in Great Britain there were many who were 
very much taken by surprise. The English, however, 
had one great advantage which enabled them to under- 
stand and appreciate the nature of the American move- 
ment. This was not so much community of language 
as the instinct of race. After all, what had happened 
in the United States was nothing but what had, time 
and again, happened in Great Britain. We had, in- 
deed, led the way in all such enterprises for more than 
a generation past. ~No Englishman who was in the 
least degree informed as to the nature of Spanish mis- 
10 



146 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

government in Cuba will deny that, had the policy of 
the United States been directed by the statesmen of 
Downing Street, and had the American people been 
subject to the impulses which sway the British public, 
the Spanish flag would long ago have disappeared 
from the American Continent. 

Another great advantage which enabled our people 
to understand the action of America was the close 
analogy which existed between the American move- 
ment for the liberation of Cuba and the great agita- 
tions which from time to time had swept over this 
country in favor of the liberation of Christian prov- 
inces from the Sultan. English policy has occasion- 
ally been revolutionized, and has frequently been 
deflected by a great humanitarian impulse beating pas- 
sionately in the hearts of the common people. On 
the Continent of Europe such experiences are either 
unknown or are extremely rare. Hence, when the 
United States declared war against Spain, it was only 
in England that the sincerity, the genuineness of the 
popular feeling found general recognition. Every- 
where else it was believed that the humanitarian 
professions which figured so conspicuously in the dip- 
lomatic and public declarations of the American 
Government were mere pretexts put forward to mask 
a long meditated design upon the possessions of a 
neighbor. The English, who have been accustomed 
to similar misrepresentations on the part of Continen- 
tal nations, found themselves in lively sympathy with 
their American kinsfolk, not merely because of what 



HISPANIOLIZATION 147 

they were doing, but because of the way in which they 
were misjudged by their critics. 

But while this was true concerning the outbreak of 
the war, even the English were not a little amazed at 
the sudden development of American ambitions. It 
is true, no doubt, that the completeness and dramatic 
character of the American successes at Manila and at 
Santiago were sufficient- to elate a less excitable people 
than the Americans. But that the American Repub- 
lic, which for a century had been constantly held up 
before our eyes as a type of the staid, serious, business- 
like commonwealth, should suddenly have passed 
under the sway of Imperial ambitions, would not have 
been credited in England any more than it would have 
been in the United States itself before Dewey de- 
stroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila. It is, no doubt, 
true that the motives which led the Americans to in- 
sist upon the cession of the Philippines were largely 
humanitarian, and sprang in great measure from a con- 
ception of Imperial duty which was far removed from 
anything that could be described as Jingoism. The 
sentiment of the obligations which they owed to the 
islanders, whose government they had destroyed; the 
sense of supreme power, carrying with it obligations 
which must be fulfilled — even though they exposed 
the Commonwealth to misrepresentation and imposed 
upon the United States a burden much more onerous 
than profitable — undoubtedly counted for much more 
than censorious critics are willing to admit. At the 
same time it was impossible to deny that below all the 



148 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

lofty motives which impelled many Americans to take 
up their cross and accept the responsibility of civiliz- 
ing the Philippines, there was a strong turbid flood of 
masterful ambition. The Americans had felt their 
strength for the first time beyond the seas. They had 
made their debut in the arena of world politics. They 
had gained immediate and universal recognition as a 
world Power — as they believed, the greatest of the 
world Powers. They had conquered; why should they 
not annex ? Annexation was the fashion of the hour. 
All the other Powers had established outposts on the 
Asiatic Continent. It was not for the United States 
to shrink appalled from assuming a burden which 
much weaker states had borne with pride for genera- 
tion after generation. The pride of victory, the flush 
of conquest, the determination to assert themselves in 
the world — in short all the motives with which we are, 
alas! only too familiar, asserted themselves imperi- 
ously across the Atlantic, and combined with much 
more exalted sentiments in impressing upon the Old 
World the sense of the sudden advent of a new com- 
petitor for empire, richer than any of those which had 
already engaged in the partitioning of the world, and 
which was likely to bring to the great international 
game a spirit of audacity, not to say of recklessness, 
far greater than their own. We are even now much 
too near such a great world-event adequately to realize 
its importance. 

It was not only the advent of a new and formi- 
dable factor which must henceforth be reckoned with 



HISPANIOLIZATION 149 

in the world problem that startled and bewildered 
Europe. There came along with it a curious sense 
of the instability of things. The older nations felt 
very much as the inhabitants in a region which for 
the first time has been swayed by an earthquake. 
Down to the day when Dewey destroyed the Spanish 
fleet at Manila, nothing seemed so absolutely fixed and 
stable in a mutable world as the determination of the 
United States not to fly their flag on any territory but 
their own. The traditional policy of the United 
States, the declarations of their statesmen, the appar- 
ently unanimous conviction of the people, all com- 
bined to make the rest of the world believe that what- 
ever might happen within the American Continent, 
they were quite safe in calculating that, excepting be- 
tween the Pacific and the Atlantic, the United States 
need not be reckoned with. The day after the destruc- 
tion of the fleet at Manila the whole scene changed as 
if by magic. The traditional policy, the declarations 
of statesmen, nay more, even the convictions of the 
people themselves, seemed to be totally transformed. 
The mariners who landed upon the back of the kraken, 
and imagined that they were on terra ftrma, were not 
more astonished when the huge monster suddenly dived 
beneath the sea, than was mankind when the United 
States asserted their determination to keep what the 
victory of Dewey had placed within their grasp. 

Simultaneously with the blazing apparition of 
American Imperialism there was witnessed another 
phenomenon, which in its way was equally disquieting. 



150 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Spain, down to the beginning of this year, had been 
considered, not indeed as a great Power, but as a state 
which was capable of holding its own within the lim- 
ited area of its influence. The reputation of Spanish 
statesmen, it is true, was not very high, but it was be- 
lieved that they were at any rate sane — that at Madrid 
there were Ministers who realized their responsibility, 
and who would bring to the government of the country 
the same forethought and care that is displayed by or- 
dinary men in the ordinary affairs of life. The Span- 
ish fleet, for instance, was believed to be no inadequate 
opponent of the fleet of the United States. They had 
behind them a great tradition. The quality of the 
vessels was first class. Their armament was thought 
to be even superior to that of the American ships. In 
land forces they were overwhelmingly superior in 
number and equipment, in discipline and in experi- 
ence. The army in Cuba had been acclimatized by 
long campaigns waged against the insurgents. The 
almost universal calculation was that Spain at least 
could hold her own for a time, while in Cuba itself she 
would make a long and arduous resistance. 1898, 
however, showed that Spain had gone rotten at the 
head. They had the ships, but their armament was 
lacking. They had the sailors, but they were un- 
trained in gunnery, and lacked the necessary experi- 
ence in naval warfare. The advantages of material 
were useless, and when they were put to the test they 
went down like a row of ninepins before their 
assailants. 



HISPANIOLIZATION 151 

Far more serious, however, than the failure of the 
fleet was the evidence which the war afforded of the 
lack of any serious thought or any practical common 
sense on the part of the so-called statesmen of Madrid. 
Imbecility is hardly too strong a term to use to de- 
scribe the way in which the Spanish Government en- 
countered the reverses which rained upon them in two 
Continents. It was then discovered that Spain had 
not only ceased to be a Power among the nations, but 
that she was no longer capable of producing adminis- 
trators who possessed either the nerve, the conscience, 
or the morale necessary for the maintenance of the 
national credit or the defence of the national interests. 
There then came into use a word of which we are likely 
to hear a good deal more in the years that are to come. 
That term was " hispayiiolization" A decaying state, 
when it reaches a certain point of what may be called 
national putrefaction, is said to be " hispaniolized." 
It marks an advanced stage in national decay. 

ITispaniolization, indeed, is no new phenomenon, 
but we have never seen it exhibited on so great a scale 
in a nation which at one time had played the foremost 
role in the drama of history. In the previous year 
there had been afforded another example in a young 
state of the same lack of serious purpose, the same 
absence of common sense, the same reckless indiffer- 
ence to the most simple and elementary facts of 
government, which were subsequently displayed in 
Madrid. The levity, the absurdity, the fantastic dis- 
regard of the plainest duties which characterized the 



152 TEE EXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

policy of Greece when she challenged war with Tur- 
key, afforded only too close a parallel to the conduct 
of Spain. In both countries were constitutional mon- 
archies. In both the concession of representative 
government had resulted in producing nothing more 
worthy of respect than a scramble of office-seekers for 
the spoils, and neither country in the hour of its mis- 
fortune showed any capacity to produce a strong and 
capable administrator. Hence ensued, when the mo- 
ment of trial came, a paralysis which brought both 
states to the verge of ruin. Greece was saved by the 
intervention of the Powers, which threw their shield 
over the prostrate kingdom. Spain found no friends 
in need, and had to consent reluctantly to the sacrifice 
of almost all its possessions over sea. Financial dis- 
aster accompanied military defeat, and nations every- 
where realized more vividly than ever before that 
states, like individuals, could go reeling down to the 
grave with exhausted vitality and a paralyzed brain. 

At the same time that this tremendous world-drama 
was being enacted in the presence of the whole world, 
two of the greatest statesmen who had long towered 
aloft as pillars in the international Commonwealth 
were removed by death. Mr. Gladstone was the first 
to go ; but he had hardly been laid to rest in the Abbey 
before Germany had to lament the disappearance of 
the great statesman whose iron hand had rebuilt the 
fabric of German unity in the latter half of the nine- 
teenth century. The nations which had been gov- 
erned for nearly the lifetime of a generation by old, 





KoUtrtunai\ Budapest 
DEZOS SZILAGY 



Goszlelh, Bu lapest 

BARON BANFFY 




Kollertanar, Budapest Strelisky^ Budapest 

M. TISZA MAURUS JOKAI 

SOME STATESMEN OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 



HISPANIOLIZATION 153 

experienced statesmen, found themselves in the hands 
of comparative tyros. The throne of Russia was occu- 
pied by an almost unknown young man. The desti- 
nies of Germany were in the hands of a monarch whose 
restless energy and feverish ambition offered the 
sharpest possible contrast to the traditional idea of 
the stolid, phlegmatic and matter-of-fact nation over 
which he ruled. In Austria-Hungary, the rivalry of 
the various nationalities which make up that com- 
posite empire-kingdom seemed to have escaped the con- 
trol of the Government. Between Austria-Hungary 
and chaos there existed but the barrier of a single life ; 
nor was there either in Hungary or in Austria a single 
statesman of European reputation. France was torn 
by internal dissensions, the end of which no one could 
foresee. For a moment M. Hanotaux had seemed to 
display some capacity to give permanence and con- 
sistency to French foreign policy; but M. Hanotaux 
disappeared, and a succession of ephemeral Ministries 
once more showed that while the Third Republic pos- 
sessed an infinite capacity for producing politicians 
eager for portfolios, she showed no sign of any ability 
to produce a directing class or a statesman with genius 
for government. 

In England the situation, although apparently more 
stable, had many elements of anxiety, not to say of 
danger. Foremost among these must be placed the 
disappearance of the balance of the Constitution. 
Hitherto the government of the British Empire had 
always been conducted on the assumption that the 



154 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

party in power was confronted by an Opposition which 
conld be relied upon to act as a check upon the Govern- 
ment, and which was prepared at any moment to take 
office and form an administration composed of trained 
statesmen with a well-defined political programme. 
But of late years that security has disappeared. Lord 
Salisbury was in power at the head of a large majority 
almost entirely free from the restraint and the control 
which previous administrations had found in the ex- 
istence of an Opposition. Whenever a Liberal Gov- 
ernment is in power it has always to reckon with the 
House of Lords, which is a permanently Conservative 
body. Lord Salisbury was equally supreme both in 
the House of Lords and in the House of Commons. 
Confronting him in the House of Commons there was 
only a disorganized and distracted remnant of a great 
historical party, which had neither a leader to follow 
nor a policy to recommend. As a natural and inevit- 
able result, Ministers, freed from the usual restraints 
of Governments and finding themselves confronted 
by no organized Opposition, gave free scope to their 
individual idiosyncrasies. Under the semblance of a 
homogeneous Cabinet we were confronted with the 
spectacle of a Prime Minister whose pacific tendency 
was more or less openly countered by the current of 
bellicose sentiment which found its leader in Mr. 
Chamberlain. In the House of Commons party disci- 
pline preserved the outward semblance of unity; but 
in the press, especially in the newspapers which were 
nominally Ministerialist, this hostile tendency found 



HISPANIOLIZATION 155 

vent in a series of unsparing criticisms which left little 
or nothing to be said by the recognized chiefs of the 
Liberal Opposition. 

The situation, indeed, was one Which in some re- 
spects bore an ominous resemblance to that which 
existed when the Aberdeen Cabinet controlled the 
destinies of England in the middle of the century. 
Lord Aberdeen, although differing in many respects 
from Lord Salisbury, nevertheless resembled him in 
a strong predisposition against war and against policies 
which were likely to necessitate the adoption of a 
course of warlike adventure. Mr. Chamberlain was 
the Lord Palmerston of the situation. Both had the 
same dominant characteristics — a swaggering deter- 
mination to assert themselves without much regard 
to the susceptibilities of their neighbors, and an un- 
compromising readiness to adopt the last arguments 
of kings when other arguments failed. If we were to 
carry the parallel further we might find considerable 
analogy between the position of Mr. Balfour in 1898 
and that of Mr. Gladstone in 1854. Mr. Kinglake, 
in a well-known passage, has explained how it was that 
a Cabinet, whose Prime Minister was devoted to peace, 
and whose chief pillar of strength in the House of 
Commons was equally free from all imputation of 
Chauvinism, nevertheless drifted fatally into war. 
More than once in the course of the past year it seemed 
as if the parallel would hold true, even to the last 
bloody ultimate. Fortunately, so far, we have been 
spared, but no one who looks back over the history of 



156 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

the twelve months, and sees the alternate phases of 
bluster and " bunkum/' of graceful concessions and 
prudent retreat which followed each other with almost 
the regularity of the black and white squares on a 
checker-board, can feel particularly proud of the ex- 
periment of governing without an Opposition. On 
the Opposition benches there was an utter and woful 
lack of either initiative or resolution. 

At the beginning of the year a great opportunity 
was offered to the Liberals of adopting a line which, 
as the result proved, would have commended itself 
to the country, and would have obviated most of the 
misfortunes which subsequently ensued. If they had 
definitely followed the plan laid down by Lord Kose- 
bery when he abandoned the leadership and insisted 
that the time had come to call "Halt ! " in the extension 
of the responsibilities, territorial and otherwise, of 
Great Britain ; and if they had steadily and resolutely 
supported Lord Salisbury in his efforts to maintain a 
rational and pacific policy in the Far East ; — much that 
is most to be regretted in the history of the year would 
not have been written. But the instinct of the Oppo- 
sition to oppose, even when it has neither an alterna- 
tive policy nor an alternative Cabinet to place before 
the country, was too strong for the adoption of a policy 
which would at once have been patriotic and prudent. 
The pacific section of the Ministry found themselves 
overwhelmed by the pitiless hail of snarling criticisms 
showered upon them by their own organs morning, 
noon and night. The young men of the party, wax- 



HISPANIOLIZATION 157 

ing bold, and feeling that they conld indulge with im- 
punity in the license of irresponsible criticism, took a 
delight in assailing their own side for want of energy 
in defending British interests, which, being inter- 
preted, meant going to war with Russia. 

It is hardly possible to conceive of a more fatuous 
course than that which was taken by Sir William Har- 
court, who, while professedly desiring to maintain 
peace, used the whole of his great forces of raillery 
and sarcasm in ridiculing the Government and in hold- 
ing them up to derision for their lack of vigor and the 
inconsistency of their policy. One of his speeches 
which dwells in the memory was one long invective, 
every sentence of which tended directly in favor of 
the party that was endeavoring to hound the Govern- 
ment into war; and then by way of salve to his con- 
science he wound up by expressing a great desire for 
a good understanding and friendly relations with 
Russia. 

A member of the Cabinet said to me on the eve of 
the Southport election, " We shall lose Southport and 
we shall lose all the by-elections because we won't go 
to war with Russia." I replied, " Not at all. You 
would lose your by-elections much worse if you did go 
to war with Russia. The fact is, you can govern this 
country either on a peace tack or on a Jingo tack; 
but you can't govern this country and win your by- 
elections if you are Jingo one day and all for peace 
the next." As Mr. Spender frequently remarked in 
the Westminster Gazette, it is absolutely impossible to 



158 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

steer the British lion when tv\ T o men are on his back, 
one sticking his spurs rowel-deep into his flanks, while 
the next moment his colleague is reining him in with 
curb and bit. 

During the whole of that trying time, when the 
issues of peace and war were hanging in the balance, 
and it seemed as if the peace section in the Cabinet 
would be overborne by the clamors of their own sup- 
porters, Lord Rosebery, who had flung up the Liberal 
leadership rather than assent to what he regarded as 
a dangerous drift towards war for the redress of the 
wrongs of the Armenians, said never a word, but pre- 
served a silence of the Sphinx on the rare occasions on 
which he was visible to his countrymen. At last, when 
things came to a head, and the Government, after 
fumbling and floundering, felt that it must placate its 
supporters by seizing something somewhere, and Wei- 
Hai-Wei was occupied, the nation waited with anxiety 
for some words of wisdom from the men of light and 
leading who were responsible for the direction of the 
affairs of the Opposition. But Lord Rosebery w T as as 
dumb as a sheeted corpse, while the Liberal leaders in 
the House of Commons decided with only one dis- 
sentient that it would be impolitic for them to adopt 
the policy of a resolute opposition to such an extension 
of our imperial responsibilities. So the party which 
had been self-decapitated in order to prevent action 
in the interest of humanity in the near East, contented 
itself with the emission of barren and futile criticisms 
upon the seizure of a great stronghold in the China 



HISPANIOLIZATION 159 

seas. The clamor of concessionaires, the angry de- 
nunciations of men whose business had not prospered 
as much as they hoped it might have done in the China 
trade, found no strong and resolute voice upraised to 
rebuke the heedless selfishness of financial greed. All 
this, it must be confessed, has an ominous resemblance 
to the beginnings of hispaniolization in our own 
Empire. 

Amid all this paralysis of self-effacement by a de- 
moralized and disheartened Opposition, and the con- 
flicting counsels and eddying policies of a Cabinet, in 
which it seemed as if Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Salis- 
bury were striving for mastery as Jacob and Esau 
struggled together before birth, it was impossible not 
to be impressed by a phenomenon which boded ill for 
the peace of nations. That phenomenon was the 
growth of the influence of the daily press. It may 
sound paradoxical, but it is nevertheless true that side 
by side w T ith this alarming development of the power 
of irresponsible journalism there has been as percept- 
ible a diminution of the influence of the press as an 
arena for the grave discussion of public questions. 
The paradox is easily explicable when we reflect upon 
the dual nature of a newspaper. The editor of a news- 
paper is the showman of the universe. It is given to 
him to display before the eyes of mankind the vast 
moving panorama which is continually in progress 
among mankind. You put your penny or your half- 
penny into the slot, and you are permitted to survey 
mankind from China to Peru. The keeper of this 



160 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

journalistic slot-machine, as a condition of his exist- 
ence, must make his living photographs move as viv- 
idly, picturesquely and dramatically as possible before 
the eyes of the public whom he wishes to attract, other- 
wise they will go to somebody else's slot-machine, and 
he will be left penniless. Side by side with this func- 
tion of showman, the editor combines the task of a 
mentor, discussing, praising, condemning and judging 
the actions of the characters which he displays in vivid 
life upon his broadsheet. But men are but grown-up 
children at the best; and no one who has had any 
experience of the nursery can have forgotten the 
impatience with which youngsters resent the morals 
that all serious-minded writers used to consider 
necessary to round off their tales. So inveterate is 
the habit of skipping the moral that I well remember, 
when I brought out an edition of zEsop's Fables in 
my " Books for the Bairns," I reversed the usual cus- 
tom, and condensed the moral into a headline as the 
only chance of its finding acceptance with the juvenile 
public. Editors are driven to act very much in the 
same manner. The showman gains more and more 
upon the moralist, and the influence of the editor is 
more felt in the headlines of his paper than in his 
leading articles. The " scare-heads," to give them 
the expressive name which they enjoy in the United 
States, have gained; the leading articles have lost. 
Hence the influence of the journalist which has devel- 
oped of late is not the influence of the writer of lead- 
ing articles, who at least is bound to state arguments 



HISPANIOLIZATION 161 

in a more or less rational and consecutive fashion ; but 
it is the influence of journalism of the scare-head vari- 
ety, which employs all the resources of type for the 
purpose of emphasizing and deepening the sensation 
of the news of the day. 

It is easy to see how this change has come about. 
Twenty or thirty years ago the majority of our people 
did not read the daily newspapers, and those who did 
were more or less educated. Since the Education Act 
began to turn out millions of youths with sufficient 
education to read the newspapers, a new public was 
created unaccustomed to the serious discussion of polit- 
ical affairs, but quite willing to be interested in the 
endless sensations with which the progress of events is 
constantly supplying the reader of newspapers. They 
were willing to read the daily papers, but only on con- 
dition that the news was short and spicy, and served 
up in tit-bits with all the garnishing that effective sub- 
editing could give it. 

We see the ultimate outcome of this tendency in 
the Daily Mail, a journal established within the last 
two years by a man with a natural genius for journal- 
ism, with limitless resources and restless energy. The 
Daily Mail, a halfpenny morning paper, although the 
youngest of the London dailies, has far eclipsed all its 
older rivals in circulation. But its leading articles 
are but snippets, and its political comments are often 
little more than snap-shots. It owes its success to the 
ability, energy, and resources with which its editor 

has succeeded in making it the mirror in which you 
11 



162 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

can see in miniature the reflection of everything that 
is going on in the world that is piquant, interesting, 
or sensational. It is a many-colored quilt of piquant 
paragraphs, all duly displayed with adequate scare- 
heads, and the whole served up with a snippety-snap 
smartness and up-to-dateness which abundantly ac- 
counts for its phenomenal success. A journal that 
has already achieved a circulation of half a mil- 
lion a day is a fact whose significance cannot be 
ignored as an index to the state of public feeling 
or as an influence in the direction of public af- 
fairs. The Daily Mail, in short, is a first-class half- 
penny show, which has counted for a good deal in the 
development of the impatient unrest of the London 
public to which Ministers are always more or less 
responsive. 

I give this prominence to the Daily Mail for an- 
other reason — because it so vividly illustrates the 
ascendency which the scare-head editor has over the 
responsible director of the responsible political opin- 
ions of the paper. There are few men in London who 
are so level-headed and so sane on the subject of China 
and our relations with Russia as the editor of the Daily 
Mail. Mr. Alfred Harmsworth is of the school of 
Cecil Rhodes; and Cecil Rhodes has never even had 
the mildest attack of Russophobia. No school in the 
Empire has looked more dispassionately and judicially 
upon the progress of Russia than the Rhodesians, and 
in this Mr. Harmsworth is a faithful disciple of his 
master. Although these may be the convictions of 



HISPANIOLIZATION 163 

the editor, it unfortunately cannot be said that the 
Daily Mail's influence during the whole of the agi- 
tated period was in favor of rationality or of the pur- 
suance of a reasonable and sympathetic course in the 
region where the interests of Kussia and England were 
supposed to be at stake. It is more piquant, more in- 
teresting, and tends more to keep up the sensation and 
interest of the show to issue day by day a paper bris- 
tling with suggestions that the Kussians were over- 
reaching us and that Lord Salisbury was being bested; 
and so things went on until we had the Mail almost 
threatening the Government with disaster if it did not 
seize Wei-Hai-Wei or some other vantage point in 
China. 

Another example may be cited of latter-day journal- 
ism which in one respect is more apposite, but in an- 
other does not illustrate quite so clearly the conflicting 
influence of the editor and the writer of scare-heads. 
The New York Journal, which a few years ago came 
into the possession of Mr. W. R. Hearst, became last 
year in many ways the most notable specimen of the 
journalism which is now in the ascendant. If you 
wish to know the difference between America of thirty 
years ago and America of to-day, you only need to 
compare the New York Tribune with the New York 
Journal, and contrast Horace Greeley with "W. R. 
Hearst. The New York Journal is the supreme 
example of successful journalism achieved by what 
may be described as the persistent adoption of a policy 
of spasmodic sensation. Mr. Hearst is a man com- 



164 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

paratively young, a millionaire with great journalistic 
flair e, and without any well-defined political prin- 
ciples, who nevertheless was possessed by a vast ambi- 
tion. At first the ambition seems to have taken no 
other definite shape or form than a determination to 
beat the New York World on its own ground. To 
this end he poured out money like water, and by a 
series of Napoleonic coups at last established himself 
in the premier position of American journalist. Dur- 
ing the Avar, when he had a fresh edition nearly every 
ten minutes, and filled up the intervals by painting 
the latest bulletins on enormous boardings in front of 
the office, the circulation is said to have reached 1,250,- 
000 per clay, a circulation without previous parallel in 
the history of American journalism. 

A distinguished statesman speaking of the New 
York Journal and its rival the New York World, 
expressed with great vehemence his conviction that 
the " yellow journalism," as it is called, of ISTew York 
was " the most potent engine ever devised by the devil 
for the demoralization of the democracy." Strong 
as this declaration may appear, it is feeble compared 
with the denunciations which are rained upon the 
Journal by the Americans of the soberer and saner 
variety, whom you find in diplomatic posts abroad or 
meet in society. So vehement and violent are the 
diatribes levelled against Mr. Hearst and the Journal 
that I have occasionally found myself in danger of in- 
curring the major excommunication because I have 
occasionally acceded to his request to contribute spe- 



HISPANIOLIZATION 165 

cial articles to his columns. In reality, the Journal 
is by no means the leprous rag which its enemies repre- 
sent it. It is a newspaper which appeals to the crowd. 
Kot even the greatest of journalistic Barnums could 
attract a million readers to his show without largely 
pandering, if we may use so strong a word, to the 
groundlings. It would be high treason in America 
to use the phrase once familiar in English politics and 
to describe the newspaper public as a " swinish multi- 
tude; " but there is a greater element of truth in the 
phrase than sticklers for the dignity of human nature 
would always be disposed to admit. The public is not 
so much swinish, as it is preoccupied with its own af- 
fairs, and if its attention is to be attracted it needs to 
be stimulated, to be shocked as by a perpetual succes- 
sion of electric thrills. All newspapers recognize this 
more or less, but Mr. Hearst last year was the supreme 
practitioner of the art. To get up a sensation, to keep 
it going, and before it has time to be played out to get 
up another sensation, and yet another, in endless suc- 
cession — with that whole art and mystery of latter-day 
journalism he was familiar to his finger-tips. But it 
would be a great mistake to regard these showman arts 
by which the crowd is attracted to the fair as repre- 
senting the whole or even the greater part of the phe- 
nomenal position which Mr. Hearst attained. For 
some time the Journal swung to and fro, apparently 
without either chart, compass, or steering directions; 
but within the last year it aspired to be much more 
than the mere sounding-board of the " cackle of the 



16G THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

bourg," or the journalistic cinematograph of the events 
of the world's history. 

More than any other man in the United States, Mr. 
Hearst was responsible for the war with Spain. As 
he constantly avowed in his leading columns, while 
other newspapers were content to try to chronicle his- 
tory, it was the boast of the Journal to make it; and 
he made it with a vengeance. Whatever we may 
think as to the wisdom or unwisdom of the course 
which the Journal has advocated, no one can deny 
that from first to last it preached what may be called 
the expansionist doctrine with a vehemence, an energy, 
an ability, and a persistency which could not be ex- 
celled. Responsible American statesmen will tell you 
that they never read the Journal, that it is a paper 
that is never seen in any respectable house, and that 
it is a great mistake to pay any attention to what they 
call its " ravings." 

But to all this I have only to make the same reply 
that Prince Bismarck made to a British Ambassador, 
to whom he had complained about some articles in the 
Pall Mall Gazette. " The Pall Mall Gazette;' said the 
Ambassador impatiently, " is in no sense a Ministerial 
organ." "No," said Bismarck, "perhaps not; but 
whatever the Pall Mall Gazette says to-day, Ministers 
do to-morrow." And it may safely be said that if 
any one wished to form a correct estimate of the prob- 
able drift of American policy during the whole of last 
year, he would have found a much safer guide in the 
leading columns of the Journal than in the avowed 



HISPANIOLIZATION 167 

intentions and genuine convictions of President 
McKinley and his Cabinet. 

Nor is it only in the English-speaking countries that 
we find the influence of the latter-day journalist exert- 
ing more and more a dominant influence in the direc- 
tion of the affairs of nations. There is only one other 
paper in the world which can challenge primacy, in 
point of view of circulation, with the New York 
Journal. That is the Petit Journal of France. The 
Petit Journal is a creation largely of the publishing 
genius of Marinoni. It counts its daily circulation by 
the million, and there is no nook or corner of France 
into which it does not penetrate. It has many good 
qualities, and, like both the Daily Mail and the New 
York Journal, it is conspicuously free from any ap- 
peal to the great goddess Lubricity, whose modern 
Paphos is Paris. But of all engines for exciting and 
intensifying national hatred and envenoming the feel- 
ings of class against class, it would be difficult to find 
anvthinff worse than the Petit Journal. No accusa- 
tion against England is too absurd not to be welcomed 
in its columns, and no invective against the friends of 
Dreyfus can be too savage for the editorial taste. It 
goes forth day by day with its million voices into all 
the villages and hamlets of France, engendering 
hatred and stirring up strife. 

This perhaps is a natural and an inevitable result 
of the extension of the journalistic suffrage to great 
masses of the people to whom you can only appeal if 
you print in very large capitals, and whose attention 



168 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

you can only command by a perpetual prodding with 
a very sharp pen. The old readers, the minority, may 
still read their papers, but they are no longer in the 
exclusive possession of the field. Their judgment is 
overborne; their voice is silenced by the murmur 
which rises from the great crowd at the show, which 
when it is tickled laughs, and when it is provoked roars 
from a million throats. This, it may be said, is only 
democracy, but it is democracy articulate. It is a 
partial return under modern conditions to the ancient 
practice in which the affairs of a state were decided 
by the whole people assembled together in a mass meet- 
ing. The modern nation is little better than a huge 
mass meeting, in which the voice of the scare-head 
editor alone has stridency sufficient to carry to the 
verge of the crowd. His voice is never still. It 
sounds from a vantage like that of the muezzin's tower, 
high above the city's din, when it cries; but not like 
the simple Mahometan, " To prayers, to prayers ! 
There is no God but God, and Mahomet is the prophet 
of God," — rather it cries aloud to the barbaric in- 
stinct of self-aggrandizement, self-assertion, self-glori- 
fication. " There is no people so great as the Ameri- 
can people," cries the Journal from its million issues, 
" no people so great, so glorious, so good, so altogether 
fashioned in the image of God." And so in similar 
fashion our latter-day journalists instead of acting as 
mentors, accept the role of flatterers, and diligently 
fan the flames of national egotism and imperial ambi- 
tion. It is, perhaps, too much to expect a journalist 





Nadar, Paris 
M. DRTJMONT 

Editor of the " Libre Parole " 



Gerschel, Paris 

M. PRESSENS^ 
Foreign Editor of the " Temps " 





Santony, Paris 
M. ROCHEFORT 
Editor of " I/Intransigeant '* 



Pirou, Pan 
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 

Editor of " L'Aurore " 



SOME FRENCH EDITORS 



HISPANIOLIZATION 169 

who depends for his existence upon the crowds which 
he can attract through his halfpenny peep-show, to 
don the mantle of a prophet and to risk stoning in the 
market-place for speaking stern but unpalatable truths 
in the ears of his countrymen; but the fact that the 
temptation to flatter the prejudices and minister to the 
passions of the crowd is almost irresistible increases 
rather than diminishes the danger of the position. 

This phenomenon is one of the most conspicuous 
and universally recognized perils which threaten the 
maintenance of peace. It is no longer in the cabinets 
of monarchs or in the closets of despots that we must 
seek for the greatest peril which threatens the tran- 
quillity of the world. The despot, especially if he be 
hereditary, is saddled with an ever-present sense of 
responsibility. He is trained for his task from his 
childhood, and he is chained to his throne by obliga- 
tions from which he cannot divest himself. But the 
irresponsible editor, who flings firebrands all day long 
amid the combustibles of national passion, lives only 
for the day, and has no restraint either of law or 
of custom placed upon his reckless incentives to 
war. 

I did not meet a single responsible man in the course 
of my tour through Europe, whether he might be jour- 
nalist or statesman, diplomatist or sovereign, who did 
not frankly admit that the unbridled license of the 
press, and the interest which it had in promoting situ- 
ations that create sensation, constituted the most 
alarming and serious danger against which it behoved 



V 



170 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

statesmen to provide some barrier if the peace were to 
be maintained. 

A well-known journalist in Paris to whom I had 
made some such observation as this, exclaimed: "Noth- 
ing could be more true. There are men in Paris at 
this moment who, in order to sell ten more copies of 
their paper to-night, would not hesitate to make the 
whole planet swim with human blood." 

It is easier to point to the evil than to indicate the 
remedy, but one or two observations are forcing them- 
selves with increasing pressure upon the attention of 
responsible men. The liberty of the press is one of 
the most cherished palladia of human freedom. Eng- 
land is the home of such liberty, but in England the 
law is prompt to punish any attempt on the part of 
the press to express an opinion upon any question when 
once it has come before the attention of the courts. 
Is it too much to hope that when the United States of 
Europe comes more visibly into shape as a state organ- 
ism, a similar restraint may be laid upon newspapers 
in the discussion of international questions when they 
are lodged for settlement before an international 
tribunal ? 

In this connection I may be pardoned for recalling 
an incident in my own experience. Some years ago, 
Jabez Balfour, the founder of the Liberator Building 
Society, failed, and involved in his downfall the ruin 
of thousands of the most deserving and most unfor- 
tunate of British investors. Instead of waiting to 
answer before the tribunals of his country for the 



HISPANIOLIZATION 171 

gigantic system of embezzlement and fraud by which 
he had plundered the widow and orphan in a thousand 
homes, he bolted from the country and took refuge in 
the Argentine Republic. Much diplomatic represen- 
tation was necessary and no small expense was in- 
curred before his extradition was agreed to, and he 
was handed over to the officers of the law, who brought 
him back to answer for his crimes in the dock at New- 
gate. In chronicling the fact of his being brought 
back to justice in my monthly review of events, under 
the heading of " The Progress of the World," I re- 
marked that the said Balfour was a rare rogue, and 
added that we should soon hear no more of him. That 
he was a rare rogue no one could deny. That we did 
hear no more of him was a prophecy literally fulfilled, 
because within a very few weeks he was consigned to 
a felon's cell, where he still remains in durance vile. 
Nevertheless for making that perfectly obvious remark 
concerning a man who had set our laws at defiance 
and was being brought back by the strong hand of the 
law to undergo his trial on a criminal charge, I was 
haled up before Her Majesty's Judges, severely re- 
proved and fined £100 and costs in order to teach me 
the limits of the liberties of the press in commenting 
upon affairs which are still sub judice. 

Against the justice of that verdict, and the sound- 
ness of the principle upon which the law was enforced, 
not one protest was raised in the press, nor do I make 
any complaint on my own account. It was no doubt 
a personal hardship, but the principle was worth main- 



172 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

taming at the cost of such individual inconvenience. 
But if, instead of hazarding a passing observation as 
to a criminal not yet tried, who had virtually admitted 
his guilt by fleeing from the jurisdiction of the Courts, 
I had strained every resource of passion and of rhet- 
oric in order to inflame public opinion on a question 
involving peace or war which was being handled by 
the Foreign Offices of two countries — if I had suc- 
ceeded in rousing popular passion to such an extent 
that it was impossible for the still, small voice of rea- 
son to be heard, and if, as a result, I had succeeded in 
hounding my country into a terrible war, I should no 
doubt have been held answerable before the judgment- 
seat of the Almighty, but there exists no human power 
and no judicial authority on this planet that would 
have called me to account. 

The contrast between the excessive severity with 
which the law guards the impartiality and the serenity 
of the judicial bench in cases involving the liberty and 
property of private citizens, and the indifference which 
is displayed to passionate invectives avowedly directed 
against the dispassionate consideration of international 
disputes, can only be regarded as a recklessness too 
great to have been incurred deliberately by any sane 
people, and which, therefore, will sooner or later have 
to be corrected when the attention of mankind has 
been turned to this omission in the panoply of civili- 
zation. 



PART III 

TEE NORTHWESTERN STATES 

CHAPTEE I 

BELGIUM 

Before even I had landed on the Continent a catas- 
trophe that overwhelmed Cervera's fleet on the Cuban 
coast was vividly recalled to the mind by the associa- 
tions of the narrow seas through which the Ostend 
steamer ploughed its way. The very wind was still, 
the unquiet seas were smooth, and overhead the silent 
stars looked down from a cloudless sky. But along 
that low-lying coast, where glimmered here and there 
the sentinel lights, there swept three hundred years 
ago, in bloody confusion and smoking ruin, the wreck 
of the Armada of Spain. 

I had not been twelve hours in Brussels before I 
found myself in the Chapel Royal, attending the re- 
quiem mass for the hapless Empress of Austria. All 
the Diplomatic Corps attended in full dress, Protestant 
and Catholic, Christian and Moslem alike testifying 
in formal courtly fashion, as the solemn music wailed 
through the crowded church, the common sorrow of 



174 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

the world for the Imperial victim. But even there 
the memory of the war obtruded. For among the 
throng of gorgeous uniforms two figures stood con- 
spicuous by the sombre plainness of their attire. 

The American Minister, of course, wore his usual 
plain clothes. But matching him, to the no small 
astonishment of the Diplomatic Corps, stood the Span- 
ish Minister in undress. Why, no one knew. Spain, 
we knew, had lost her colonies and her fleets, but she 
surely had a uniform left. 

Leaving the church, I strolled down to the most 
famous monument in the city, the famous square, 
sacred to the memory of Counts Egmont and Horn, 
the patriot victims of the Duke of Alva, the Weyler 
of his day. Everywhere in the Low Countries you 
stumble upon traces of the sanguinary flood-tide of 
Spanish conquest, of the heroic sacrifices by which 
these lands were redeemed for civilization and human- 
ity in the days bygone. Nowhere could I more fit- 
tingly begin my mission of inquiry as to what the Old 
World thought of the New America, than in the thriv- 
ing, industrious commonwealth which rose from the 
ashes of the Alva's vengeance. 

Belgium is not one of the Great Powers, but the 
little kingdom is a microcosm of Europe. Her inter- 
national position, her close proximity to and intimate 
relation with France and Germany, her traditional 
intimacy with England, the recent and astonishing 
development of her industrial enterprise in Russia, 
make her a vantage point from which the European 



BELGIUM 175 

movement of opinion can be studied more conven- 
iently and advantageously than almost any other land. 
But from the point of view of my American mission 
to ascertain what the Old "World thinks of the latest 
new departure of the New World — that world which, 
ever since it was discovered by Columbus, has been 
an increasing source of astonishment to Europe — there 
was still another reason for making Belgium the start- 
ing point of a European tour of interrogation. The 
parallel between Belgium and the United States is 
curiously close. Both countries owe their political 
existence to a successful revolution. Although one is 
monarchical and the other Republican, both are alike 
blessed with a constitution which has its imperishable 
bases on the principles of the sovereignty of the people, 
the liberty of the press, and the liberty and equality 
of all religions. Both countries at their foundations 
abjured all ambition of foreign conquest. Each pro- 
fessed a resolute determination to cultivate its own 
garden without meddling with the lands beyond its 
borders. Both are industrious, prosperous, peaceful 
and contented, the envy of their neighbors and an 
example for the world. If the United States had no 
army, Belgium had no fleet. 

Nevertheless Belgium, or rather the ruler of Bel- 
gium, succumbed even sooner than the United States 
to the fascination of over-sea dominion. While 
Americans are still hesitating whether or not to make 
two bites of the Philippine cherry, Belgium has, 
within the last dozen years, built up for herself a 



176 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

tropical Empire in Africa almost eighty times her own 
area. She is dreaming of concessions in China, she is 
making immense investments in Russia. Everywhere 
she is looking over the pale of her own little garden 
for fresh fields for the investment of her super- 
abundant capital and for the exercise of her exuberant 
energy. Belgium's experience, therefore, enables Bel- 
gians to form a sympathetic and intelligent judgment 
concerning the new departure in America. 

I spent some days in Brussels, during which I had 
an opportunity of forming a tolerably comprehensive 
conception of Belgian opinion on the subject. There 
is no feeling of alarm or antipathy in Belgium to 
America's expansion, either in the West Indies or in 
the Philippines. They criticize it impartially, feeling 
that it does not concern them. But they protest 
against any parallel being drawn between the found- 
ing of the Empire of the Congo and the acquisition of 
the Philippines. Belgium, the King protests emphatic- 
ally, is so small, so crowded a country — it has a popula- 
tion of 6,000,000 on the area of 11,300 square miles 
— that if he did not look out for fresh fields and pas- 
tures new his flock would ere long be compelled to eat 
each other. 

The King of the Belgians, who, if he had but a 
wider scope for the exercise of his abilities, might have 
achieved a foremost position in the history of our 
times, is the founder of the Congo State. His point 
of view is that it is the very smallness of the Belgian 
kingdom which justifies the policy of expansion. As 




(sife'ruzet, Brussels, after Numa Blanc, Camus 
LEOPOLD, KING OF THE BELGIANS 



C. F. Gordes, Haarh m 

M. CREMEE 

Minister for Colonies, Netherlands 




Ghmther, Brussels 
THE CROWN PlilNCE OF BELGIUM 



THE QUEEN OF BELGIUM 



BELGIUM 177 

he wrote in 1890, when he made the will leaving the 
Congo to the Belgian Government — a gift not even 
yet accepted — 

I have never ceased calling the attention of my fellow 
countrymen to the necessity of looking towards the countries 
over the sea. History teaches us that it is the moral and 
material interest of countries with a restricted territory to 
extend beyond their narrow frontiers. Greece founded on 
the Mediterranean opulent cities, the home of arts and civ- 
ilization: Venice later on established her grandeur by the 
development of her maritime and commercial relations, no 
less than by her political successes. The Netherlands possess 
in the Indies thirty million subjects who exchange their 
tropical products for those of the Mother Country. It is in 
serving the cause of humanity and progress that peoples 
of the second rank appear as useful members of the great 
family of nations. More than any other should an indus- 
trial and commercial nation like ours strive to secure out- 
lets for the products of all its workers — of those who work 
with their brain, with their capital, or with their hands. 
These patriotic preoccupations have dominated my life. It 
is they which led to the creation of the African enterprise. 
My labor has not proved sterile. A young and vast State, 
directed from Brussels, has pacifically taken its place in the 
world. 



"For Belgium," said a former Prime Minister, 
a expansion is an economic necessity. The fact that 
we have no fleet is sufficient to prove that it is not 
prompted by Imperial ambition. But with the United 
States it is different. Their immense resources in 
their own territory are barely scratched. If they 
found colonies as the result of conquest it is due to 
the lust of power. I do not blame the Government. 
12 



178 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

They were powerless before the clamor of the crowd. 
Xone the less it seems to me an enormous mistake." 

It is quite true that the Belgians, as a nation or as a 
state, have never committed themselves to a policy of 
over-sea expansion. They are a cautious people. The 
Congo adventure is a speculation of the King's. The 
proposal to transfer the Congo State to Belgium has 
been vehemently and hitherto successfully resisted. 
For the last eight years the Belgian Parliament has 
devoted 400,000 dols. a year to subsidize the Congo 
administration, and it will continue to do so until 
1900, when the question of annexation will once more 
come up. It is almost certain that the decision will 
be again postponed. 

One cause for this reluctance to regard the Congo 
kingdom as part of the national estate is well worthy 
of American attention. 

" If the Americans," said an experienced observer, 
" wish to make a success of the Philippines, as the 
Belgians have made of the Congo, the first thing they 
have got to do is to discover a Leopold. They need 
not call him a king. Of course that is impossible and 
unnecessary. But unless they have a capable admin- 
istrator with a permanent tenure of office and a free 
hand they had better leave it alone. In the Congo 
State, the King of the Belgians is a greater autocrat 
than the Tsar in Russia. He invented it, he financed 
it, he governs it. In every detail his will is supreme. 
He tells us just so much about its finances as he 
chooses. And, being a man of extraordinary ability, 



BELGIUM 179 

with a quite exceptional genius for finance, he has 
achieved a remarkable success. But there is hardly 
a man who knows anything about the Congo and its 
affairs who will not tell you that the attempt to govern 
that vast empire by the ever-shifting agency of party 
government, based on universal suffrage, would be 
foredoomed to failure." 

But the scruples of the Belgians are disappearing 
in the presence of the boom in Congo stocks. The 
ten millions sterling which are now invested in the 
Congo railway and Congo commercial companies 
stands to-day, according to the Stock Exchange quota- 
tions, at no less a sum than thirty millions. The 
revenues of the State, including the Belgian and royal 
subsidies of £120,000, almost equal the expenditure, 
which last year was a trifle under £600,000. The 
Congo, therefore, promises to turn out a paying con- 
cern, and if the promises are made good, the objections 
of the Belgians to become a colonial power will prob- 
ably wane and disappear. 

Another point on which opinion was practically 
unanimous was that it is the merest midsummer mad- 
ness to touch the Philippines at all unless the Ameri- 
cans take the whole archipelago. To take away 
Luzon, the very hub of the wheel, and then leave the 
rest of the spokes to Spain on the condition that she 
shall govern them more or less on American principles, 
was regarded as such unspeakable nonsense that it 
can only be criticized by an expressive shrug of the 
shoulders. 



180 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Belgians are by no means indifferent to American 
expansion in two directions. They are keenly inter- 
ested in the question of the future government of the 
Philippines from the point of view of the Catholic 
Church. For Belgium for the last fourteen years has 
been governed by a succession of Catholic Ministries. 
The Liberals who attempted to establish secular edu- 
cation have been practically effaced. The Clericals 
are in power, confronted by a Socialist opposition; but 
the latter have no prospect of gaining office. 

I made it my duty to ascertain at first hand the 
views of the two men who, more than any others, repre- 
sent the feelings of the Catholics. Both were watch- 
ing with the keenest interest the development of the 
situation in the Far East. Both agreed in expressing 
an earnest hope that, whatever is done, no confiscating 
hand will be laid upon the property of the religious 
orders. One of them, the man Avho for years has been, 
while out of office, almost as potent as Mr. Croker is in 
Kew York, would not commit himself so far as to say 
that he disapproved of introducing religious liberty 
into the Philippines, but he evidently leant that way. 
" The question," he said, " is whether America intends 
to govern these new conquests in accordance with the 
wishes of the population, or whether she intends to 
exploit them for her ideas. It is not reasonable to say 
that, because Belgium grants perfect religious liberty 
to the heathen and missionaries of the Congo, there- 
fore she must approve of its introduction into the 
Philippines. There the unity of the faith exists. If 



BELGIUM 181 

you break it down large masses will, as we see it every- 
where, forsake the Catholic Church without joining 
any other. The result is immorality, which is deplor- 
able." 

The other, an experienced statesman, once a Prime 
Minister and now the President of the Chamber of 
Representatives, was much more liberal in his views. 
I was fortunate in meeting him immediately after his 
return from the Vatican, where he had been sum- 
moned for lengthy conversations with the Pope and 
the Cardinal Secretary of State, Eampolla. 

He expressed without hesitation his absolute convic- 
tion that religions liberty, as in Belgium and in the 
United States, was the best thing for the Philippines, 
and that he, for his part, would as a Catholic rejoice 
to see abolished the whole fabric of intolerance and 
sectarian monopoly. 

As he had enjoyed the privilege of long conversa- 
tions with the Pope and his advisers, I asked him 
point blank whether he thought the Holy See shared 
his liberal views. 

" You cannot expect the Pope," he said, " to make 
any declaration in that sense. He could not do so 
without repudiating doctrines affirmed by his prede- 
cessors. But he is a statesman; he is a practical man, 
and Rome is swarming with American clerics who 
have considerable influence at the Vatican. You 
must always distinguish between what the Pope may 
think with the front of his head and the arrierepe7isee, 
the back of it. Of course, as a matter of principle, 



182 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

no Pope can declare in favor of any refusal to enforce 
religious uniformity. But if you ask me what I really 
believe, I must tell you that if the Americans establish 
religious liberty in the Philippines the Pope will find 
his compensations in the increased liberty which he 
will enjoy in dealing with the clergy without the inter- 
meddling of the civil power. Religious liberty, as in 
Belgium, would not in the long run be detrimental to 
Catholic interests." 

These questions are, however, more or less aca- 
demical, or at least they concern the few who, in the 
privacy of the closet of the confessional, meditate upon 
the affairs of this world from their ideal of the King- 
dom of Heaven. 

Far different was the keen interest excited by the 
pressure of American competition in the markets of 
the world. Opinions differ widely, but the best in- 
formed are the most alarmed. American competi- 
tion in food-stuffs has long since established itself as 
the most formidable factor with which the European 
agriculturist has to deal. They are now beginning 
to wake up to the fact that American competition is 
likely to be not less formidable in manufactured goods. 
American watches have long ago driven Swiss watches 
out of Belgium; but as a good Belgian remarked, that 
concerns the Swiss, not the Belgians. But in the iron 
and steel trades the shadow of American competition 
looms dark on the horizon. 

The other day, in a tender for locomotives, the Bald- 
win Works at Philadelphia offered to put on the rails 



BELGIUM 183 

at Antwerp a locomotive at 500 dols. less than the 
lowest offer of the great firm of Cockerill. 

The general conviction that there will soon be a 
great slump in protection in America by no means 
lessens their uneasiness. Belgium, as befits a nation 
which exports manufactured goods averaging £10 per 
head of population, is all for free trade, and, like Mr. 
Gladstone, it is inclined to believe that American com- 
petition will not be seriously begun to be felt until the 
United States has thrown its markets open to the 
world. 

The brave Belgian is not disposed to despair, but 
those who know most about the resources and capa- 
bilities of America are the most alarmed. 

Prince Albert, who will one day sit on the Belgian 
throne, came back from his visit to the United States 
profoundly impressed by the manufacturing resources 
of America. He saw the bicycle factories at Hart- 
ford turning out seven hundred cycles a day ; he visited 
the Baldwin Works, where they build six locomotives 
a day; he visited Pullman's works, where they turn 
out a wagon every fourteen minutes; and he tells how 
Mr. Carnegie produces three-fifths of the whole steel 
output of England. He spent a week travelling in 
a private train with Mr. Hill, of St. Paul, and he came 
home overwhelmed by the spectacle of the mineral 
and mechanical resources of the Republic. 

" I saw," he said on his return, " in one place a 
mountain of ore in which the mineral extracted from 
the higher levels made its way by natural gravitation 



184 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

down the hill to meet at the furnace the coal mined 
at its foot, and almost without the intervention of the 
hand of man the process was complete. How can we 
compete with such a country as that? " 

" Alas ! " said Prince Albert to an American friend, 
"you will eat us all up, you Americans; you will eat 
us all up." 

The response of the Belgians to the Tsar's Rescript 
has been most enthusiastic. On this subject Belgium 
is practically unanimous. Everywhere the proposal 
has been hailed with enthusiasm — even in quarters 
where it might have been scouted. The Catholics, 
from the highest to the lowest, are as one man in favor 
of the Tsar's philanthropic design. In this they are 
in absolute accord with their head. Nothing could 
exceed the delight of the Holy Father on receiving 
the appeal of the Tsar in such a cause. For once there 
is a veritable reunion of Christendom: the official 
chiefs of the Greek Orthodox and of the Boman 
Catholic Churches are now going hand in hand in a 
crusade of peace. There are special reasons why the 
Boman Catholics should welcome the Russian pro- 
posal. Even if the Conference did not go one step 
further than decreeing a stay of armaments for five 
years, it would deliver the Belgian people at once from 
a constantly pressing menace of increased armaments. 

For years past there has been a tug-of-war going on 
in Belgium between the King and his subjects on this 
very question. The Belgian standing army is only 
31,000 strong. It is raised by the old-fashioned 



BELGIUM 185 

method of conscription, and hitherto the Belgians 
have obstinately resented all the appeals of their King- 
to introduce universal compulsory military service. 
The King is not a man of war. He is emphatically 
a man of peace. But he stands between two fires. 
France is always whispering into his right ear that 
unless he increases his army the Germans will invade 
France via Brussels; while the Germans whisper as 
earnestly into his left ear that unless he introduces 
universal military service Belgium will inevitably be- 
come the cockpit of the bloodiest war ever fought 
between civilized men. But the Belgian, who hates 
even the conscription, will not tolerate the idea of uni- 
versal service. It appeals no doubt to certain demo- 
cratic prejudices, and it appeals specially to the in- 
stinct of self-preservation. The Belgian Parliament, 
however, will have none of it, and the Catholic party, 
which created and sustains the Government, is irrec- 
oncilably opposed to the whole scheme. The feud 
is so fierce that no General can be found who will ac- 
cept office as Minister of War unless the army is en- 
larged according to the King's desire. The present 
Minister of War is a civilian who tacks on the control 
of the military machine to the more congenial labors 
of the Ministry of Ways and Communications. It is 
obvious what a godsend the Tsar's proposal has been 
to the governing body in Belgium. At a stroke the 
Tsar has delivered them from the one dread which has 
haunted them for years. If the Conference succeeds, 
and the status quo is stereotyped, the ideal of the 



186 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Belgian Government is attained, for all talk of 
universal compulsory military service vanishes into 
limbo. 

The Socialists look the Russian gift horse in the 
mouth, and shake their heads when they find the prin- 
ciples on which they have so often insisted coun- 
tersigned by a Tsar. Some of their spokesmen have 
insisted upon the necessity of inaugurating the Millen- 
nium by establishing the universal reign of right 
against might, as a condition preliminary to any ac- 
ceptance of the disarmament proposal. 

But the popular feeling is unmistakable. Whether 
in the press or on the platform, in the palace of the 
King, or even in the camp of the army itself, there 
is only one opinion as to the sincerity of the Tsar and 
the duty of all civilized men to back him up. I spent 
a Monday afternoon in Liege, the great centre of the 
Belgian gun trade. There was there in session a 
Catholic Social Democratic Congress, attended by 
workmen and a host of Progressive priests from the 
country side. Although it was not in their regular 
agenda, a workingman from Brussels insisted upon 
interpolating into their proceedings a hearty vote of 
appreciation and support to the Tsar for his proposal 
of a Conference of Disarmament. The motion, stud- 
ded with copious " whereases " and couched in the 
choicest Catholic phraseology, was carried with una- 
nimity and enthusiasm. 

Men like General Brialmont, who believe in their 
profession, are dubious about the possibility of achiev- 





E. Fabronius, Brussels 
M. BEENAERT 



Ghemar Freres, Brussels 
M. WOESTE 







f>- 


' 




4 




J 




Geruzet Freres, Brussels 
BARON VON EETVELDE 
State Secretary for the Congo Free State 

PROMINENT STATESMEN OF BELGIUM 



Russell and Sons 
M. D'ALVIELLA 



BELGIUM 187 

ing any practical result. But the Belgians who do 
not wear epaulets are more sanguine. 

What ultimate outcome there may be no one can 
say. But I saw and heard enough in this microcosm 
of Europe to realize how grievous will be the disap- 
pointment, how terrible the disillusion if the splendid 
initiative of the Tsar is not energetically supported 
and carried to a successful conclusion. 



CHAPTEE II 



FRANCE 



Last autumn the New World invaded the Old 
World, and in Paris the Hotel Continental was the 
headquarters of the Army of Invasion. It was a 
pacific invasion, no doubt, but the invaders were bent, 
if not on conquest and annexation, at least upon appro- 
priation and extension of borders. 

The struggle that went on between the French 
authorities and the United States Commissioners of 
the Exposition of 1900 brought forcibly home to the 
European the great question of the future. It is a 
miniature reproduction on a small scale of the conflict 
of forces which looms ever more gigantic before the 
eyes of mankind. 

" Room, room, room there for the New World ! " 
cried Mr. Commissioner-General Peck. The Ameri- 
can must have room to spread himself and his wares 
at the World's Fair with which Paris will salute the 
new century, and the allocation of space in the Expo- 
sition grounds is far too small. The amiable French 
Ministers expostulate with polite shoulder shrug. 
" 'Tis impossible. What would our friends the Ameri- 
cans have us do? Germany and Great Britain are 




THE PARIS BOURSE 




THE ARC DE TRIOMPHE, PARIS 



FRANCE 189 

also imperiously clamoring for more ground space. 
We have already allotted the United States all we can 
spare. It is impossible, quite impossible." 

"Impossible!" thunders the Commissioner-Gen- 
eral; "don't use to me that idiot of a word! Your 
space is small, I admit — only 336 acres as against 750 
acres at Chicago. But our needs are great. Room, 
make room for the growing giant of the Western 
World! " 

What can be done? The 336 acres cannot be 
stretched like elastic. All the space is appropriated. 
If Uncle Sam were to have more room, he could only 
have it at someone else's expense. Perhaps a scrap 
of space can be secured from a concessionnaire — here 
and there a bit can be squeezed from some South 
American Republic. But if Mr. Commissioner- 
General Peck and his staff were to attain the object 
on which they had set their hearts, " somebody's got 
to git." 

The Americans were quite remorseless, ruthless, 
relentless in their demands. Chicago, in the person 
of Mr. Peck, and New York, in the person of Mr. 
Woodward, backed by President McKinley and the 
whole of the United States, were determined that who- 
ever got left in the scramble for space it should not 
be Uncle Sam. They were hustling round at a great 
rate, negotiating, blarneying, bullying, buying, push- 
ing, until the Old World felt that it was being crowded 
on its own ground, perhaps even crowded out of its 
own ground by the Western conqueror. 



190 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

What went on in the Exposition grounds is going 
on on land and sea all round this planet. The shrink- 
age of the world has suddenly brought the nations face 
to face with each other. In the markets, in the colo- 
nies, and on the high seas the Old World is beginning 
to realize that perhaps there may no longer be enough 
to go round, that somebody is going to get left, and 
that that somebody is not going to be the New World. 
The conviction is coming home more slowly to the 
Frenchmen than to the Belgians, but they are learning 
it all the same. 

The result is an immediate increase of the deference 
paid to the United States by the French. Nothing 
succeeds like success ; and the difference in the attitude 
of the French to the Americans since Manila and 
Santiago is more marvellous than edifying. French- 
men of all classes, who twelve months ago sneered at 
the " dollar-hunting Yankee " as their forefathers 
scoffed at " the nation of shopkeepers " across the 
Channel, are running over each other in a helter- 
skelter race, vying with each other as to which can 
first fall on Uncle Sam's neck and embrace him. The 
way the Fourth of July was celebrated in Paris last 
year, as compared with its predecessors, was an object- 
lesson in the worship of the rising sun. If by any 
possibility any space could be discovered any way in 
the Exhibition of 1900 it was of course to be made 
over to the sister Republic, rather than to the German 
or to the Briton. Was not the Commissioner-General 
ready to erect a statue of Lafayette in the grounds — if 




Nadar, Paris 
M. BRISSON 
Premier of France 



C/). Ogerau, Park 

M. BUUNETIERE 
Editor ll Revue des Denx Mondes " 





Nutlar, Paris 
M. JAURES 

Socialist Leader 



fierre Vetit, Paris 
GENERAL ZURLINDEN 

Military Governor of Paris 



FOUR PROMINENT FRENCHMEN OF TO-DAY 



FRANCE 191 

only lie could get the space on which to set it up \ The 
Minister of Commerce and the Minister of Foreign Af- 
fairs vied with each other in paying exceptional com- 
pliments to the Commissioners of the United States. 
Nay, it was even hinted that in 1899 American goods 
would be admitted to France under the minimum 
tariff, reciprocal concession being of course anticipated 
on the other side. 

The war was a revelation to the average Frenchman. 
When Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila 
the scales began to fall from their eyes, and they " saw 
men as trees walking." When Cervera's fleet shared 
the same fate off Santiago, they realized that a new 
naval power had been born into the world, inheriting 
from the Destinies, as one of them put it, the good 
fortune that has always attended the English on the 
seas. Early in the war a. report that the American 
fleet had been destroyed and Admiral Sampson killed 
threw the Parisian populace into a paroxysm of de- 
light. In those days no one disguised his sympathies 
with Spain. But nowadays they all agree to forget 
all that, and they are already convinced that there 
were never such friends of the Americans as the 
French, and never have been since the world began. 

All this is very pleasant for Americans in Paris, 
and it contributed to facilitate the work of the Peace 
Commissioners. There was no trace of a disposition 
in official quarters to make any difficulties in settling 
the terms of peace. If the United States were to 
insist upon annexing every scrap of territory pos- 



192 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

sessed by Spain in the West Indies and the Far East, 
France would not interfere. The only demur made 
to the Imperial expansion of the United States comes 
from experienced observers like M. de Pressense, of 
the Temps, who regret the new departure, not because 
it affects France, but because it endangers the Ameri- 
can Kepublic. The French are at present exhibiting 
to the world some of the deplorable results of domi- 
nant militarism. They sigh when they see the New 
World gliding down the inclined plane which leads 
to Caesarism. They declare that the annexation of 
the Antilles and of the Philippines will necessitate 
the creation of a large standing army, the enrolment 
of a corps of functionaries, a departure from all the 
traditions of the Republic, and a total transformation 
of the letter and spirit of the American Constitution. 
In France, as in Britain, it is the men who know most 
of the United States — such men as Mr. Bryce and M. 
de Fressense — who are most alarmed as to the conse- 
quences of the new departure of the New World. 

When I was in Paris I wrote to the Associated 
Press : — 

I see that there appears still to be some question as to 
whether the European Powers ever actually proposed to 
intervene on behalf of Spain. The story was that they had 
decided to do so, and were only stopped by the blunt intima- 
tion from Lord Salisbury that if they ever attempted any 
such thing the British fleet would be placed under the orders 
of Mr. McKinley. It is a very pretty tale, and Lord Salis- 
bury might have said something of the kind if the other 
Powers had been mad enough to propose any such thing. 
Possibly some influential Briton did say something of the 



FRANCE 193 

kind when talk of intervention was in the air. But I have 
the highest official authority, both British and French, for 
stating that there was never any proposal brought forward 
by M. Hanotaux for European intervention against the 
United States, and that therefore no occasion arose for the 
exercise of the friendly offices of England. I regret having 
to destroy the legend, but magna est Veritas, and however 
delighted John Bull might have been to have lent a friendly 
hand to Uncle Sam if the Continental Powers had tried to 
interfere, he never had the chance. And for this reason. 
The European Powers, and France most of all, had too much 
sense. 

The origin of this story I discovered two months 
later when I visited Vienna. The legend had, after 
all, an indestructible basis of truth. 

Men of the world, men of experience, men of affairs 
— above all, men who are deeply versed in the tor- 
tuous wiles of diplomacy — agree in expecting nothing 
from the Conference of Disarmament, and in fearing 
much. If the hard-pressed toilers of the world are 
to obtain any appreciable relief from the crushing load 
of Militarism, they will have to extend to the generous 
initiative of the Tsar a much more hearty reception 
than it is receiving from the men in office. The 
Democracy may help the Autocracy to achieve this 
boon for the human race. It will certainly not reach 
them at the hands of the Bureaucracy. 

Everywhere the Governments have answered the 
Muravieff Rescript with the customary courtesy that 
is always extended to anything that is said by the 
master of many legions, but, with one or two excep- 
tions, of responsive enthusiasm there has been none. 
13 



194 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Every one admits the sincerity of the Tsar, every one 
professes to admire his idealism and his philanthropy. 
But when all that is said and done, there is the most 
astonishing consensus of opinion that " it is not busi- 
ness." " Everything," they say with a shrug of the 
shoulders, " will go on exactly the same as before. 
There is only one Circular the more." 

So speak everywhere the cynical and very much 
disillusioned diplomatists. Diplomacy, it must be 
admitted, is not usually a forcing-bed for moral enthu- 
siasms. Ambassadors and Ministers who for the last 
thirty years have been perpetually face to face with 
the omnipresent activity of Bismarck may be pardoned 
for thinking twice, and even thrice, before they expect 
any good thing to come from the Nazareth of Imperial 
Chancelleries. Men who for the last half-dozen years 
have been familiarized with the ineptitude of the 
European Concert can hardly be expected to have 
many illusions left as to the possibility of bringing in 
the Kingdom of Heaven by any sort of international 
compact. It is only in the hearts of the common 
people, and among the masses where, far from the 
coulisses of diplomacy and the intrigues of Courts, 
men still cherish generous enthusiasms and an un- 
shaken faith in the great ideals of Peace, Justice and 
Progress, that the Tsar's proposal elicits any hearty 
response. " After all," said a young countryman, 
after a long discussion with a friend, " the Millennium 
is bound to come some day, and who can say whether 
it may not come this way as well as any other ! " " The 



FRANCE 195 

Millennium is bound to come some day " — there is the 
keynote of the situation. From those who believe 
that, who cling to it as the great hope of the world, as 
the eternal pole star of the progress of mankind, the 
Conference on Disarmament receives a welcome the 
heartiness of which is only weakened by the haunting 
fear that it may be too good to be true. 

The full significance of the Tsar's initiative has, 
however, as yet been but dimly perceived, even by 
those who have welcomed it most heartily. Alto- 
gether apart from its proposals, or the subject of them, 
it carries written in every line of it the glad tidings of 
great joy that the winter of the period of old age is 
over and gone, and that once more mankind is facing 
the glad, joyous spring-time of a new century, under 
the leadership of those whose hearts are still fresh with 
the divine inspiration of youth. The old century is 
dying — let it die. Dr. Busch's " Secret Pages of Bis- 
marck's History " furnishes us at once with its epitaph 
and its condemnation. But lo! the sky glows in the 
East with the first promise of the splendor of the com- 
ing day. In the Imperial Rescript, however Utopian 
it may be, we have the first great challenge which the 
new age has flung at the feet of the most gigantic evil 
of our time. Here, at least, is something of the faith, 
the courage, and the magnificent audacity of youth. 
In the task of high emprise to which Nicholas II. sum- 
mons the nations of the world he may fail. It is not 
in mortals to command success. But it is better to 
have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. 



196 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Hence, the more we think of it, the more just, the 
more true, appears the pregnant dictum of Mr. Morley. 
The Tsar's appeal is a touchstone of the peoples. " It 
will show us what we are and where we stand." 

It is natural that in France, and most of all in Paris, 
the doubting spirit which denies should be paramount. 
It is a hundred years since France used up the enthu- 
siasm of the Revolution in lighting the camp fires of 
the Napoleonic armies. Since then, although there 
has ever been a remnant who have preserved the sacred 
fire, " the men who swing France," whether under 
monarchs, Empire or Republic, have not exactly been 
French-speaking Quixotes. So far, indeed, have mod- 
ern Frenchmen gone in the other direction that I well 
remember, ten years ago, hearing one, now recognized 
as one of the most influential diplomatists, laughing to 
scorn the notion that there was even enough idealism 
left in France to make the war of revenge popular 
with the people. " There are only two men in 
France," he said in his bitter, sarcastic fashion, " who 
ever think of such an ideal thing as the fate of Alsace- 
Lorraine, and one of them is a woman." He referred, 
of course, to the soldier-poet, Paul Deroulede, who has 
just been threatening M. Clemenceau with the guillo- 
tine, and Madame Adam, of the Nouvelle Revue. The 
worship of material comfort has succeeded all other 
ideals with most Frenchmen. Hence the Tsar's ap- 
peal falls upon ears stuffed as with cotton wool, and 
awakens slight response in hearts which resound all 
day long with the Babel of the Bourse. There is no 



FRANCE 197 

longer a Victor Hugo worthily to respond in the name 
of France to the initiative of the Tsar. 

The faithful few who are true to the great ideals 
of the Revolution, and the still smaller remnant who 
worship in secret at the shrine of the Prince of Peace, 
are overborne in the roar and rush of politicians and 
financiers. They find it more than they can do even 
to keep the scales of justice free from the sword of 
Brennus at home. They have no energy left to com- 
bat militarism abroad. The army itself, which is tra- 
ditionally supposed to be the cradle of all that is most 
exalted in heroic sentiment, can hardly be expected to 
wax very enthusiastic in support of a Peace Confer- 
ence. But there is another reason for the coolness of 
Paris towards the Conference. The French felt hurt 
that they had not been consulted by their ally before 
he issued the Rescript. They anticipated nothing in 
the world so little as such a proposal from such a quar- 
ter. Not disarmament, but more armaments, was 
their idea of what the Tsar desired. To oblige him 
they had even allowed French shipbuilders to give 
priority to the construction of Russian warships over 
those of France, to the production of which it had re- 
peatedly been declared all the shipbuilding resources 
of the nation would be exclusively devoted. The Re- 
script, therefore, simply took away their breath. They 
felt themselves, in more senses than one, " up a tree." 
They did not know where they were or what the 
Tsar was driving at. They thought he was spoiling 
for a fight, and lo! he issued an encyclical to the 



198 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

world at large, proclaiming the supreme importance 
of Peace! 

Behind all that first natural sensation of surprise 
there was another which went much deeper. The pro- 
posal to attend a Conference to discuss disarmament 
seemed to suggest that there was no longer a purpose 
for keeping up such gigantic military establishments. 
In other words, it appeared to imply that Europe had 
at last settled down in a state of normal equilibrium, 
and that everybody was practically content with the 
existing frontiers. That was, in effect to ask all the 
nations of the world to enter upon a pact of peace, the 
practical result of which would be that each and all 
of them would countersign and guarantee the Treaty 
of Frankfort. That treaty, indeed, would, in such a 
case, become the very charter and basis of the system 
which the Conference was to inaugurate. Farewell, 
then, to all hope of the Revanche; farewell for ever 
to Alsace and Lorraine ! To bid such farewells may be 
obeyed if it be a decree of the Destinies, against which 
it is vain to repine and impotent to rebel. But to be 
suddenly summoned by your own friend and partner, 
apropos de rine, to say those farewells at a moment's 
notice — that, indeed, was more than French human 
nature could bear. Hence, after the publication of 
the Rescript, a profound and miserable chill came 
over French sentiment towards their Russian ally. 

That mood existed, but it has passed. Count Mura- 
vieff had no difficulty in explaining that the Tsar was 
bound, in taking such initiative, to consult no other 



FRANCE 199 

Power, for the twofold reason that if he had consulted 
any one it would have compromised the Power he took 
into his confidence and have offended the other Powers 
who were not consulted. It was equally easy to ex- 
plain that while the Rescript might initiate a policy 
that hereafter might have immense consequences, it 
did not even suggest any such chimerical a step as the 
immediate disbandment, or even the immediate reduc- 
tion, of armaments. What was suggested was merely 
to cry halt in the race to ruin, and to discuss arrange- 
ments for arresting the continuous increase of expen- 
diture on armies and navies. If France objected, of 
course nothing could be done. The absolute inde- 
pendence of each Power was intact. But there were 
good reasons why France should not object. She has 
already reached the ultimate limit of her resources in 
men. She could not increase the annual contingent 
of recruits, for the simple but sufficient reason that 
French mothers no longer bear enough boys to furnish 
any more food for powder. Germany has still a vast 
reservoir of surplus manhood to draw upon. To 
stereotype the status quo would therefore be at least 
as great a gain to France in this respect as it could be 
to Germany by its indirect and apparent consecration 
of the Treaty of Frankfort. 

There were still other reasons which have con- 
tributed not a little to assuage the irritation felt in 
France at the Tsar's proposal. It was obvious that the 
first condition sine qua non of the meeting of the Con- 
ference was that the Powers represented, in agreeing 



200 TEE EXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

to discuss the financial, military, and economical prob- 
lem mooted by the Tsar, did so without prejudice to 
all the political and territorial questions on which they 
differed. At one time, it is conceivable, a Tsar might 
have refused to enter into a Conference with France, 
lest it might appear to imply that he recognized the 
principle of Republicanism. Now not even the great- 
est stickler for the Divine right of Kings feels that he 
is false to his convictions or consecrates the principle 
of the Revolution by meeting the representatives of 
the Republic, or even of entering into an alliance with 
a Republican Government. As it is with political 
questions, so it is with those relating to frontiers. 
They are as much out of the purview of the Confer- 
ence as questions of dynasties or of the rival principles 
of Monarchy and Democracy. The Conference will 
no more discuss the question of Alsace-Lorraine than 
it will discuss transubstantiation or the Rights of Man. 
But that is not all. For the Tsar has at hand a 
valuable and effective reply to the French complaint. 
The proposed Conference may postpone the immediate 
outbreak of a war of revenge for the revindication of 
the lost provinces, but it certainly does not do so more 
decisively than the French had done already by their 
great exhibition of 1900. That Exhibition is itself 
a kind of Peace Conference. When France invited 
Germany to exhibit her goods in the great show of 
the new century, she acquiesced in the status quo. 
Of course, she did not guarantee Germany the un- 
interrupted possession forever of her lost provinces. 



FRANCE 201 

Neither will she do so by accepting the Tsar's invita- 
tion. Bnt she did give Germany the very best and 
most substantial security against a sudden French at- 
tack that any one could desire. These and other con- 
siderations have had their weight, and the momentary 
irritation against their Russian ally has already abated. 

The question as to whether the French people are 
longing for revenge and the revindication of their lost 
provinces is one on which the most widely diverse 
opinions are expressed. There is, however, substan- 
tial agreement among men of all shades of opinion 
that while France vigilantly maintains all her reserves 
and is resolved to take advantage of all the opportuni- 
ties which fortune may send her to regain her old 
provinces, she will never of her own motion or on her 
own initiative make war on Germany. A leading 
French statesman with whom I was discussing this 
question expressed in the very strongest terms his con- 
viction that no French Ministry will ever take the initi- 
ative in attacking Germany. " The risk would be too 
great, the sacrifices too immense. If Germany were 
involved in war elsewhere — ah, then, that would be 
another matter. But as long as Germany is at peace 
we shall not lift a finger to dispossess her." This helps 
to enable us to understand what a powerful security 
for peace the ineradicable yearning for the lost prov- 
inces has become in Europe to-day. 

A shrewd and experienced observer in Paris, on the 
other hand, told me that the popular feeling in favor of 
war was stronger now than it had ever been since 1870. 



202 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

The lessons of that terrible year have been forgotten. 
Paris is now in the hands of young men to whom the 
bombardment of Paris is only a matter of history and 
of tradition. Bismarck is gone. All the great Gen- 
erals who conquered France are dead. The French 
army was never stronger or better equipped than now. 
If the French saw their chance, they would not hesi- 
tate for a moment. If, for instance, the Russian Em- 
peror but held up his little finger ! 



But the Russian Emperor is holding his little finger 
down. There is another side to this alleged eagerness 
of France for war. It is the French of the Parisian 
boulevards that talk so lightly of so dire a catastrophe. 
France of the provinces — laborious, thrifty, cautious 
France — is of another opinion. A brilliant and dis- 
tinguished Frenchman — diplomatist, journalist, and 
patriot — assured me that the French peasant was very 
far from sharing the views of the boulevards. " If 
you were to go to-day/' he said, " to the average 
French peasant, and tell him that the circumstances 
were so propitious that he could certainly reconquer 
Alsace-Lorraine by an expenditure of only 10,000 
men and £10,000,000, he would reply unhesitatingly, 
1 ~No; I will not spend either the men or the money. 7 " 
It may be so. But the worst of it is that the war is 
made before the peasant has an opportunity of having 
his say. It is not his to decide. It is only his to pay, 
to suffer, and to die. 

The question of the Peace Conference I found ex- 
cited little attention in Paris excepting on account of 



FRANCE 203 

the bearing which it might have on the Franco-Rus- 
sian Alliance. When that alliance was formed, those 
who did not know the Tsar imagined that it was a 
menace to the peace of Europe. Those who knew the 
Tsar knew otherwise. The object of Alexander III. 
in thus restoring the equilibrium of Europe and in 
satisfying the wounded amour propre of France was 
the natural culmination of the policy which won for 
him the title of the Peace Keeper of the Continent. 
In his eyes France isolated, France nervous, France 
desperate, was a constant menace to the peace of the 
world. At any moment she might make a plunge, 
by which she would hurl not only herself but all other 
nations into the hell of a general war. To prevent 
this it was necessary to offer her inducements sufficient 
to lead her to acquiesce in the status quo. There were 
two perils of war before Europe, both threatened by 
France. She had never accepted either the German 
possession of Alsace-Lorraine or the British occupation 
of Egypt. To attempt to reestablish her position 
either in Metz or in Cairo meant war. To minimize 
the risk of any such peace-shattering policy, Alexander 
III., without asking for any express disclaimer by his 
ally of hostile designs directed either against Germany 
or Britain, virtually secured the practical acceptance 
of the status quo by offering France an alliance which 
was guaranteed to fall to pieces if she undertook an 
aggressive war. 'Russia flung over the French Repub- 
lic the immense segis of her alliance, delivering France 
from all dread of attack from without, and restoring 



204 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

her at once to the position in Europe which she had 
lost in 1870. But all these advantages were forfeited 
if France drew the sword against the existing order, 
the status quo de facto on the Rhine and the Nile. 
Hence the Franco-Russian Alliance became, as it was 
intended it should become, a solid security for Euro- 
pean peace, and therefore, little as the French liked it, 
a virtual consecration of the Treaty of Frankfort. It 
was acclaimed, no doubt, by the Chauvinists of the 
boulevards as if it were the first step to the Revanche. 
It was exactly the opposite. But Baron Mohrenheim 
appears to have fooled the self -deluded Frenchmen to 
the top of their bent, while the Tsar, conscious that he 
had made the limitations of the alliance absolutely 
clear to the rulers of the Republic, felt under no obli- 
gation to make public declarations which might have 
annulled the whole object of his policy of peace. The 
Tsar knew also that although the boulevards of Paris 
might revel in the delirium of anticipated war, the 
French nation, pacific and industrious, hailed with im- 
mense relief an alliance which delivered it at once 
from all risk of foreign attack, or from the still greater 
peril of such a headlong rush to ruin as that which cul- 
minated on the battlefield of Sedan. 

France is preoccupied with the Dreyfus case. And 
the Dreyfus case is militarism come to judgment, mili- 
tarism made manifest before the world. The tree is 
known by its fruits, and the impeachment of militar- 
ism on economic grounds contained in the HuraviefT 
circular is supplemented and made complete by the 



FRANCE 205 

revelation of the outcome of militarism in the moral 
field. " Militarism/' says the Tsar, " empties the 
pockets of the nations. 7 ' And France, responding 
across the Continent, as deep answers unto deep, 
answers, "And destroys their souls! " 

France, preoccupied, absorbed, possessed by the 
Dreyfus case, is the drunken helot of militarism to- 
day. She is as one bewitched, the prey of some foul 
obsessing demon, which takes a perverse delight in 
compelling her to wallow in all manner of defilements, 
from which " ideal France, the deathless, the divine, " 
would have recoiled with angry scorn. It is the Nem- 
esis of the system against which the Tsar has taken 
the field. France never had a more numerous or bet- 
ter equipped army than she possesses at present. But 
France never was weaker, more timorous, more under 
the terror of those nightmares which disturb the sleep 
of nations. It is not an exaggeration to say that the 
net result up to date of all the sacrifices which France 
has made over her armaments is to make her a prey 
to panic to an extent almost inconceivable to any one 
outside Paris. You ask in amazement : " Why all this 
tremendous hubbub over the revision of a sentence 
admittedly illegal, defended by evidence admittedly 
forged? " and the opponents of revision whisper with 
white lips that revision would inevitably bring about 
war! To avoid the risk of so terrible an alternative, 
better let a thousand innocent men perish in the 
Devil's Isle ! Thus it appears that France, despite all 
her armaments — nay, is it not because of them? — has 



206 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

become so coward of heart and craven of spirit that 
she dare not even do justice to one of her own officers 
for fear of the foreigner! Such abject poltroonery 
would disgrace the pettiest of states without a gun 
in its arsenal or a fort on its frontiers. But to this pass 
has come to-day this distraught Eepublic. 

The delirium will pass. Revision is already virtu- 
ally secured, and the light is already beginning to 
break through the dense darkness in which France 
has lain so long. But for the present the country is 
still in the throes of a fever, which springs as directly 
from the atmosphere of the barrack-room as ague re- 
sults from the malaria of the marsh. Nations create 
armies that they may be strong and independent, able 
to do justice within their own frontier, none daring to 
make them afraid. But France, having sacrificed 
everything to the creation of her army, has been afraid 
to do justice because of her army. The army, no 
longer a means to an end, having become an end in 
itself, thus tends to defeat the very aim and object of 
its being. The nation, or at least such portions of the 
nation as find articulate expression in the press, has 
been in a very ague fit of fear. It cowered before its 
own shadow, It trembled at the thought of the wrath 
of the foreigner. It shrieked in panic dread at the 
mere suggestion that even officers of the General Staff 
should be compelled to obey the laws. There is no 
crime which its more demented spokesmen do not com- 
mit, either in imagination or in fact. They glorify 
forgery, applaud suicide, and openly exult in the pros- 



FRANCE 207 

pective massacre of thousands of their fellow-country- 
men. Everything that is base, everything that is dis- 
honorable, everything that is cowardly, everything 
that is false, abject and criminal forms the constant 
meditation of Frenchmen to-day. Whichever side 
they belong to, these are the things they impute to 
each other; and if they are the party in power, these 
are the things they employ without hesitation in their 
panic-stricken warfare against a nightmare. To such 
a pass has militarism dominant brought our once noble 
France — France of the Revolution, France of Jeanne 
d'Arc. 

It is easy to see the direct bearing of this upon the 
proposal of the Tsar. In the Middle Ages the knights 
progressively increased the thickness of their armor 
until the fighting-man became a mere iron-cased 
mummy. He had not sufficient strength to move be- 
neath his defences. In France we see the same phe- 
nomenon in the moral field. Her moral vitality is no 
longer sufficient to move under the superincumbent 
mass of her armaments. The old ideas, so distinct- 
ively French, of Chivalry, Liberty, Justice, Law — all 
the sublime ideals which made France for centuries 
the knight-errant of humanity — appear to have per- 
ished beneath the weight of her immense military sys- 
tem. The amour propre of the army, the prestige of 
a staff, have superseded the nobler ideals of national 
life. Matters are much worse now than in the Middle 
Ages. For the iron and steel cuirasses of the over- 
loaded knights were at least inert matter. But the 



208 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

armature beneath which the nation is perishing to-day 
has a horrible vitality of its own. It is, as it were, 
alive, and believes that the body exists for it, and that 
brain, heart, conscience, and the ideal, which are col- 
lectively the soul of the nation, is a minus quantity 
compared with the prestige, the authority, and the con- 
venience of the army. They, if not the ultimate, 
must at least be very near the ultimate, stage in the 
self -destructive evolution of modern militarism. No- 
where in Europe could the Tsar find so terrible an 
object-lesson of the results of the baneful system upon 
which he is making war. France is a puissant ally, 
indeed, in the great argument for disarmament. 

The danger spot in Europe is, no doubt, Alsace- 
Lorraine. But the beneficent Power who maketh 
even the wrath of man to praise Him seems to be em- 
ploying this Dreyfus delirium of panic and crime to 
reduce the acuteness of that danger. England long 
ago lost the moral allegiance of the Irish, the majority 
of whom are far more American than English. The 
Dreyfus business is probably the most direct means by 
which France could have alienated the moral alle- 
giance of the Alsatian people. That which the Treaty 
of Frankfort failed to effect the Dreyfus scandal is 
fast accomplishing. The people of Alsace see with 
amazement and indignation the denial of justice to 
Alsatians. Albert Dreyfus in the He du Diable is an 
Alsatian. So is Colonel Picquart. It is enough to 
bear an Alsatian name to be hounded down as a Ger- 
man. To be a Protestant is almost as heinous a crime 





EX-CAPTAIN DKEYFUS 



Yierre Yetit, Paris 
GENERAL MERCIER 





EX-COLONEL PICQTJART COUNT ESTERHAZY 

SOME OF THE PROMINENT FIGURES IN THE DREYFUS AFFAIR 



FRANCE 209 

as to be a Jew. The honest Alsatians do not under- 
stand all this. Their patrie, to whose fortunes they 
have clung with a touching fidelity, was a different 
France from this. So they are ruthlessly being driven 
from their allegiance, and every day they are more 
and more strongly tempted to become more reconciled 
to the German. 

It was of no use discussing in Paris the details of 
the Conference on Disarmament. No one spares the 
subject a thought. That is not the way the Franco- 
Russian Alliance works. His French ally is helping 
the Tsar in a much more effective fashion. For this 
Dreyfus business has pretty effectively resulted in the 
practical disarmament of France. Never since the 
Commune stood at bay behind the ramparts of Paris 
has France been so paralyzed by internal divisions. 
As long as the Dreyfus business lasts, France is a 
cipher in Europe. Whenever for a moment the saner 
France emerges from the Malebolgic pool of passion, 
suspicion, hatred and savagery beneath which it is sub- 
merged, there always comes, as a flood tide, a revived 
interest in the affaire Dreyfus. What a turbid tide 
it is, reeking from the cloaca maxima of the world, 
bearing along upon its turbid waves the bloody corpse 
of the suicide Henry, which tosses about amid the 
wreck of much higher reputations, the disjecta mem- 
bra of the General Staff. It is a mournful spectacle. 
But who can deny that it makes for general peace? 

There is, of course, a possibility that the very mad- 
ness of the hour may lead to some sudden outbreak. 
14 



210 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

As Count Arnim wrote in 1871: " The French cannot 
be judged by the same standard as other nations. 
They have no sense of proportion, and attach impor- 
tance to matters that in reality have no significance. 
In a madhouse the merest trifles may lead to a revolt, 
and even if it be suppressed, it may first cost the lives 
of many honest people." There is a danger here, no 
doubt. But, as Bismarck wrote about the same time : 
" Two peoples dwell in France — the French and the 
Parisians. The former loves peace. The latter writes 
the newspapers, and seeks to pick a quarrel which 
the other then has to fight out. Both, however, 
should clearly remember how near the German army 
is at Chateau Thierry." The German army is no 
longer at Chateau Thierry. But the solid argument 
of force is quite as irresistible to-day as it was in 1871, 
perhaps even more so. And now there is added to that 
ultima ratio regum the fact that the Tsar, the ally and 
the friend of France, has summoned all nations to a 
Parliament of Peace. 



CHAPTEK III 



GERMANY 



In a bright apartment overlooking Friedrich Wil- 
lielm Strasse I sat pleading the other day for the Tsar's 
proposals. I was addressing myself to the gracious 
lady of the household, who, as she sat with her fifteen- 
months-old boy nestling in her arms, seemed a living 
personification of the Madonna and Child, uniting the 
glory of motherhood with the infinite promise of 
youth. She was no unworthy symbol of Europe. In 
her veins ran the mingled strain of noble blood of 
divers nations, and the face glowed with the noble 
enthusiasm of the political and social ideals to which 
she has dedicated her life. The curly-headed boy, 
coyly looking upon the stranger from the stronghold 
of his mother's arms, might have been the original of 
Raphael's Divine Child. As I talked of the need of 
the nations for release from the intolerable burden 
of militarism, she sighed. 

" Indeed, indeed, it is true. But will it come from 
such a quarter? His ideas in the Rescript are alto- 
gether our ideas. As Bebel said the other day, ' The 
Tsar is now our comrade and ally.' But we do not 
trust Russia." 



212 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

" Do not look a gift horse in the month/' I replied, 
" is a very good proverb. And great good once came 
out of Nazareth. But if these are your ideas, why 
not support the ideas even when they are put forward 
by the Tsar? " 

" These are our ideas indeed. No Social Democrat 
nor any section of the working population of Germany 
but would welcome with open arms any practical pro- 
posal to deliver the people from the corvee of mili- 
tarismus, which is so terrible a burden upon " 

Here we were suddenly interrupted. The chubby 
cherub had climbed down from his mother's lap, and 
was foraging about for his picture-book. He found 
it, and turning over the pages, suddenly shouted with 
infantile glee, ignoring our talk — 

"'Daten! 'Daten! " 

The little fellow was standing erect, with flashing 
eye. No longer was he the Divine Child of Bethle- 
hem, but rather an infant Hercules, so stout, so stal- 
wart did he seem. And again he shouted imperi- 
ously — 

"'Daten! 'Daten!" 

" What does the little chap want? " I asked. 

" Ach," said his mother, looking down with pride 
upon her child, " it has always been so. I suppose it 
is in his blood. My father, you know, was a general. 
From the first moment he could observe anything it 
was the same. Always 'Daten, 'Daten! Soldaten he 
means. Soldiers. No picture pleases him so much 
as that of soldiers. Always a soldier passing by fas- 



GERMANY 213 

cinates him. Thou little rogue," she said, " there is 
nothing like soldaten for thee, is it not so? " 

And I felt as she spoke that from the childish lips 
the "Word of the Situation had come. All the ele- 
ments of the problem were there. I was speaking up 
for the Tsar's proposal. She was replying as Europe 
has replied, and in the midst of our talk of peace and 
our invectives against militarism, the child, the herr 
of the future, interrupts with the cry, "'Daten! 
'Daten! " Alas, it may now be that once more from 
the mouth of the babe and suckling there has fallen the 
winged word of truth. 

"When in Paris I asked Max Nordau if he believed 
there was any possible chance of evoking a genuine, 
widespread, passionate protest from the European 
masses against the burden of militarism, now for the 
first time challenged in the name of humanity in the 
name of the Tsar. " No," he replied unhesitatingly, 
" not at all." " Why," I asked; " do they not groan 
under the burden?" He answered, "I know inti- 
mately the South German peasant. Ask any of them 
if they wish for war. ' Gott bewahre ! ' they will 
reply, ' there is nothing that we hate more.' But 
then if you again ask, ' Then you do not love the uni- 
form? ' they will say, i Oh, that is another matter. 
We love the uniform and are proud to wear it. To 
protest against war — that is possible; to protest against 
the uniform, no, that would not succeed.' ' 

From which it would seem that the love of soldaten 
is not confined to the grandsons of generals. It is a 



214 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

widespread if not a universal fascination. This is not 
due to any desire to fight. Much of it, indeed, is due 
to a desire to avoid fighting. The corvee of military 
service, the excessive burden of military expenditure 
are borne, if not cheerfully, then, at least, stolidly, as 
a necessary premium to ensure them against war. It 
is a kind of enchantment, as of some malevolent wiz- 
ardry, by which peoples, whose only desire is to remain 
at peace, are persuaded that the only protection against 
war is to arm themselves to the teeth. 

I spoke on the subject with the leader of the Free 
Trade party, who alike as deputy and journalist is free 
from all suspicions of militarism. He expressed in 
the strongest terms his conviction that no popular 
demand existed for a reduction of armaments in Ger- 
many. " Our people," he said, " have grown used to 
their military panoply. They do not feel its pressure 
as you might think they would. It is part and parcel 
of their national existence. They can hardly conceive 
life without military service, without the uniform. 
The best proof of this is that on every occasion when 
the question of an increase of armaments has been 
put to the people at a general election they have always 
voted in favor of the increase. Take last election. 
There existed, no doubt, a strong feeling against the 
increase of the fleet, but when the election was held 
any party that had opposed the fleet programme would 
have been swept away." 

" Your eminent deputy forgets," replied a leading 
Social Democrat, to whom I had repeated these obser- 




G. Michelle, Berlin E- Bieber, Berlin 

DR. RICIITER COUNT HERBERT BISMARCK 





Baruch, Berlin 

IIERR LIEBKNECHT 



F. Baruch, Berlin 

IIERR BEBEB 



LEADERS OF GERMAN POLITICAL PARTIES 



GERMANY 215 

vations, " that the Social Democrats have always op- 
posed the increase of armaments, and that every gen- 
eral election has seen an increase of their total poll. 
What he says is true possibly of the lower middle 
class, of the trading class, of the higher class. But 
of the masses of the population it is not true. The 
men upon whom the blood tax falls, the artisan, the 
laborer, the peasant, by them militarism is detested. 
I wish you could attend our Conference at Stuttgart, 
mingle with the delegates, speak with those who are 
of the people, and judge for yourself what the mil- 
lions of workers think of armaments. As for the in- 
crease of the fleet, that was voted on under the clever 
management of the Kaiser, who used the Kiao-Chau 
incident to overpower the opposition. But no one 
would welcome more than the German masses any 
diminution in the weight which crushes them to-day." 
There is truth in both these opinions. 'No doubt 
the Social Democrats have made continuous protest 
against armaments, but their members are themselves 
not without pride at having served in the army, and 
anything more distant from the Quaker, or Stundist, 
or Tolstoian view of military things than that of the 
German Social Democrat it would be difficult to im- 
agine. Ever since 1808 this German nation has been 
passed through the military mill. The habit of mili- 
tary service has become a universal family tradition. 
Their fathers and their grandfathers before them wore 
the uniform. Their sons and their grandsons after 
them they expect will wear it. The uniform, in fact, 



216 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

has become a second skin* even the suggestion of peel- 
ing it off is almost unthinkable. And as for peace, 
the Kaiser but expressed the universal conviction of 
his subjects when he said that the best security for 
peace was the sharp sword of the German army. 

This may be admitted, and still there may be ample 
grounds for welcoming the Congress, and for hoping 
that at that international parliament, some short 
simple measure may be agreed upon that might here- 
after come to be regarded by the historian as the line 
dividing the watershed of the old era and the new. 
All notion of any diminution of the effective strength 
of the armed forces of the world must be dismissed at 
once as at present absolutely out of the question. Of 
disarmament in the sense of even so much as one single 
soldier in the armed camp which we call the Continent 
disarming himself, laying down his rifle, and tramping 
off home, — that is not even to be thought of. To pro- 
pose to send that one soldier home might precipitate 
the one catastrophe the thought of which is the night- 
mare of Europe. But it is possible that the first step 
towards better things may be taken at the Conference 
in the shape, say, at first, of a proposal to limit the 
expenditure on armies and navies for the next five 
years to their present maximum, and afterwards, of a 
suggestion for the reduction of the term of military 
service. The former would be operative at once, and 
even if it were in some cases evaded, the mere fact that 
such an international agreement had been arrived at 
would powerfully strengthen the opposition which in 



GERMANY 217 

every country would be made to any further addition 
to the naval and military budget. As for the latter, 
it would be for the time being a mere pious aspiration. 
But it is in the line of a reduction of the period during 
which men remain with the colors rather than by any 
reduction of the numbers called up that any progress 
is likely to be made. 

There is no country in Europe where the Tsar's pro- 
posal will be supported with more apparent heartiness 
than in Germany. The Kaiser welcomed it with ef- 
fusion — and then increased his army by 26,000 men. 
The press, with the curious exception of the Vorwarts, 
the Social Democratic organ, and the Preussische 
tTahrbilcher, the organ of the Conservative Dr. Del- 
briick, praised it with one accord. " Such a philan- 
thropic young ruler, such noble aspirations," and so 
forth. But after having delivered themselves of the 
conventional compliments that are necessary when 
the master of many millions proposes anything, the 
diplomatists and the journalists shrugged their shoul- 
ders, and with astonishing unanimity declared that 
" nothing would come of it." And, truly, nothing 
can come of it if it is left to them. For these cynical 
sceptics would addle even the egg of a phoenix if it 
were left to their care. 

Germany supports the proposal from considerations 
of German interest. It would not do to offend the 
Tsar by criticizing harshly a benevolent proposal that 
will come to nothing; and then, again, if by a miracle 
it did come to anything, it could only improve the 



218 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

security of Germany by strengthening the guarantees 
for European peace. From a military point of view 
Germany never felt herself more absolutely secure. 
For them there is no more any question of Alsace-Lor- 
raine. That is vorbei. The Treaty of Frankfort has 
taken its place among the most stable and unques- 
tioned bases of the international law of Europe. Any- 
thing, therefore, that gives more stability to the status 
quo strengthens Germany, and increases the com- 
posure with which she can contemplate perils on her 
western frontier. The French General Staff appears 
to the Germans to have gone to pieces completely in 
the confusion over Dreyfus, and M. Deroulede and his 
patriots appear for the moment to be the most effective 
allies Germany could desire in keeping guard over 
Strasbnrg and Metz. 

So far, therefore, Germany can be relied upon to 
support the Tsar, but except in one direction there has 
been no sign as yet visible of any desire to give effect- 
ive expression to popular sympathy with his object. 
The solitary exception is significant. The Woman's 
League for International Disarmament which exists 
in Bavaria is endeavoring to bring about in all the 
capitals of Europe a simultaneous demonstration by 
the women of the Continent in favor of the Tsar's pro- 
posal. How the matter will be arranged it is as yet 
too early to say, or what measure of success may attend 
it. But if the International Council of Women were 
to desire an opportunity to justify its existence it could 
hardly desire a better opening than the present. No 



GERMANY 219 

object more worthy of the combined effort of the 
womanhood of the world could be imagined than this 
of arresting the ever-increasing growth of modern 
armaments. 

Certain it is that if King Demos does not move, and 
if the mothers of the household are indifferent, then 
indeed in the future even more than in the present 
or the past, the word of the situation will be " 'Daten ! 
'Daten! " Ever more soldaten! 

Berlin, which has been described by Maximilien 
Harden as Parvenuopolis, and is regarded by the 
Kaiser as the capital of Europe, is in reality the Chi- 
cago of the Old World. It has dethroned Vienna as 
the capital of the Holy Koman Empire as completely 
as Chicago has distanced St. Louis. It now challenges 
the supremacy of Paris with all the arrogance and 
more than the success with which Chicago has 
hitherto disputed the primacy of New York. It is 
like Chicago in many things, but most of all in self- 
confidence and a lordly disdain for its neighbors and 
rivals. 

From this central standpoint of the reconstituted 
Empire the German looks out upon the New "World 
with a sort of indignant surprise. The Intelligence 
Department of the Germans is believed to be the best 
in the world. What the German does not know is not 
knowledge. And when the recent war began, the 
German was quite sure he knew all about the way in 
which it would go. His impartiality was not impaired 
by any sympathy with the Latin race. He held both 



220 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

combatants in equal dislike. Spain had been very 
troublesome, both in Europe and in the Far East. 
The United States had by its food products almost 
ruined the German landed interest. " A plague on 
both your houses." Yet although there was no bias 
of affection to deflect the judgment of the scientific 
expert, he came to a mistaken conclusion every time. 
The naval expert glibly demonstrated with all the con- 
fidence of infallibility that the Americans had no 
chance with the Spaniards on the sea. Alike in ships, 
in guns, in discipline, and in sailors, the Yankees 
would be sorely put to it to hold their own against the 
Dons. As for the military men, nothing could ex- 
ceed their contempt for the United States. " With 
40,000 men," it used to be said, " we could invade 
America." The improvised army of Volunteers was 
a " rabble," and the proposal to rely upon such a 
scratch pack of uniformed civilians seemed little short 
of high treason to the generals who have devoted their 
lives to the elaboration of the German race into a 
cast-iron military machine. It seemed presumption 
to question the conclusions of these oracles. They 
knew everything; they foresaw everything; they had 
decided that the non-military Republic would be 
sorely put to it to best the military monarchy, and as 
they said it, that settled it. 

Hence when the war actually broke out, nearly 
every German newspaper, excepting the Frankfurter 
Zeitung and Die Nation of Berlin, was bitterly, con- 
sistently and continuously anti- American. The atti- 



GERMANY 221 

tude of the Government was scrupulously correct. It 
was absolutely neutral. But the sympathies of the 
nation were as unmistakably anti- American. This 
not only found expression in the press, it made itself 
disagreeably felt in the streets and in business. The 
American felt himself in a hostile atmosphere, and 
sometimes it was more than an atmosphere. This 
hostility was due to a mingled feeling of resent- 
ment, jealousy, envy, contempt, and the antagonism 
that is latent between states based on the opposing 
principles of liberty and authority, of democracy and 
imperialism. 

When the war began and every prediction of the 
experts was falsified, the Germans felt that something 
must have suddenly gone wrong in the constitution of 
the universe. They had all backed the wrong horse, 
relying upon the selections of their own infallible 
prophets, and they felt like losers. It did not sweeten 
their tempers, but they soon began to mend their man- 
ners. In a dazed kind of fashion they endeavored to 
find their bearings, and to regain their equilibrium in 
their new and unaccustomed surroundings. Their 
first instinct, as that of the drowning man, was to 
catch at something, and the flotsam and jetsam of the 
Philippines naturally suggested itself. They hurried 
their warships to Manila with an eye to eventualities, 
but the peremptory "Hands off! " from Uncle Sam 
gave them pause. Then they suddenly recollected 
that they had never thought of such a thing. The 
conclusion of peace gave them time to pull themselves 



222 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

together, to put on their thinking cap, and to try to 
size things up. 

And this, so far as can be gathered, is the conclu- 
sion they have come to. The German is a practical 
man who is determined to make the best of a bad job. 
So he is now discovering that the sudden revelation of 
the fighting capacity of the Yankee is, perhaps, not 
such a bad thing after all — at least, for Germany. It 
may, for instance, lead to embroilment with England, 
at the thought of which the German chuckles. He 
has long warmed his hands at the fire that smoulders 
between Russia and England. If another flame were 
to spring up between England and the United States 
— well, he would be warmer still. 

Then, again, the startling advent of the American 
navy on the high seas as a first-class fighting force 
supplies the Kaiser with a new and irresistible argu- 
ment in favor of adding more ships to the German 
navy. It is an ill wind that blows nobody good, and 
the disaster that has overwhelmed the Spanish fleets 
may be utilized to increase the effective force of the 
German navy. 

But that is not all. The German practical politician, 
who always judges everything by his estimate of the 
way it will affect himself without reference to its influ- 
ence on his neighbors, eagerly profits by the stimulus 
given to colonialism by the appearance of the United 
States as a Colonial Power. He smiles as he thinks 
how the Americans will discover the fallacy of their 
fond illusions when they seriously begin to equip 




Schaarwachler, Hi rlin 

PRINCE HOHENLOIIE 

Chancellor of the German Empire and 
Premier of Prussia 



E. Bieber, Berlin 

DR. VOX MIQUEL 

Vice-President of the Prussian Council and 
Minister of Finance 




Schaarwachter, Berlin 

PRINCE HENRY OF PRUSSIA 

Brother of the German Emperor 



Elliott and Fry 
SIR F. LASCELLES 

British Ambassador at Berlin 



GERMANY 223 

navies, maintain armies, and govern distant millions 
of dark-skinned races. But that is not his affair. 
What he has to do is first to silence the minority in 
Germany — that is, against armies and navies and colo- 
nies — by making the most of the sudden coming over 
of the American nation from a policy of mind-your- 
own-business and cultivate-your-own-garden-in-peace, 
to a policy of military, naval, and colonial expansion. 
America's casting vote, they say, is now given on the 
side of Colonialism and Aggression. 

Secondly — and this is perhaps the more important 
— the blow dealt at Spain by the United States has put 
the Spanish Empire in liquidation. Germany, like 
a smart man of business, intends to be in at the sale of 
the bankrupt stock. She has no intention of quarrel- 
ling with the United States. On the contrary, she 
will be effusively friendly. But she intends to have 
the first choice in whatever is left of Spain's goods 
and chattels after the Americans have had their pick. 
There are many trimmings left over after your treaty 
of peace is signed. Germany must at any cost acquire 
coaling-stations all round the world. Spain has coal- 
ing-stations to sell. Germany does not intend to be 
forestalled. She has long had an eye on the Caroline 
Islands. There are less probable contingencies than 
a deal by which Germany might at a stroke take over 
the whole wreck of the Spanish Empire in the Far 
East. No one can foresee what kaleidoscopic changes 
may come about in the near future, when the Colonial 
possessions of Spain and also of Portugal seem likely 



224 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

to come upon the market to be knocked down to the 
highest bidder. 

The present Emperor is unlike his father in most 
things, but he inherited from his predecessor a haunt- 
ing dread of the immense potentialities of the Ameri- 
can Commonwealth. This dread, which has hitherto 
been chiefly commercial, is now extending to the polit- 
ical sphere. The Kaiser has no love for the Monroe 
doctrine. If the United States cuts the Nicaragua 
Canal, the need for a German coaling-station in the 
West Indian islands will be imperious. Nor is that 
the only possibility of collision between " American- 
ism " and Germany. The German colonists are in- 
creasing in Southern Brazil. Only the other day one 
of them got into trouble for hoisting the German flag, 
and his cause has been warmly taken up by his coun- 
trymen at home. The Government looks askance at 
the enthusiasm which begets societies for the promo- 
tion of Germanism in Brazil, foreseeing complications. 
Mr. McKinley was equally opposed to intervention in 
Cuba, but he made the war notwithstanding. The 
coyness of Governments is apt suddenly to give way 
before the awakened passions of their subjects. If 
the German colonists in Brazil revolt and declare their 
independence, it will not be a far cry, in the opinion 
of eager spirits in Berlin, to the establishment of a 
German Protectorate over the German independent 
States of South America. And in that case the Mon- 
roe doctrine might fail of enforcement unless the 
American fleet were stronger than that of Germany. 



GERMANY 225 

The chief and immediate rivalry is not in colonies 
but in commerce. In the struggle for the world's 
market Germany is badly handicapped by her military 
burdens and by the comparative narrowness of her 
borders. America she recognizes as her most formi- 
dable competitor, and the contest every day becomes 
more keen. 

The admirable speech made by Mr. White, the 
American Ambassador, at Leipsic on July 4th did 
much to bring the Germans to their bearings. But 
it was significant of much that at that banquet but 
for the direct intervention of the Ambassador him- 
self no German flag would have been displayed. The 
room was draped with Union Jacks and Stars and 
Stripes intertwined. But neither German nor Saxon 
flag was visible. At the last moment a Saxon flag was 
procured, so that the conventions were preserved. 
15 



CHAPTEE IV 

THE MINOR STATES OP EUROPE 

"When I was in Home I had the pleasure of enjoying 
the hospitality of one of the most modern and least 
clerical of Europeans — none other than the famous 
Norwegian novelist, poet and political agitator, Bjorn- 
stjerne Bjornson, who has taken up his winter quar- 
ters next door to the King. If only his Majesty would 
replace the last dozen feet of the monstrously high 
wall which shuts out the Quirinal gardens from the 
views of his Norwegian neighbor by a trellis or a rail- 
ing, M. Bjornson would have no reason to wish to 
change quarters with King Humbert. For he has 
a charming set of apartments, far above the roar of the 
traffic in the street below — apartments which open out 
upon a delightful little garden on the roof, where, 
under the blue sky of Rome, surrounded by sweet- 
scented flowers, the Northern poet can look out upon 
the world as from the eyrie of an eagle. The stout 
Republican does not And the being next-door neigh- 
bors to Royalty altogether to his taste. " We share 
the music of the King's band," he said; " that is pleas- 
ant enough. But the roaring of his lion is less agree- 
able. And he is always roaring." The lion, it sterns, 



THE MINOR STATES OF EUROPE 227 

was a gift from King Menelik of Abyssinia to the 
King of Italy. It is kept in the garden of the Quiri- 
nal, where it is as unhappy as the prisoner in the 
Vatican. Day and night the royal brute roars his 
unavailing protest to an unheeding world. But the 
lion, like his namesake in the Vatican, rages in vain 
behind his prison bars. 

I had met M. Bjornson for the first time at the 
studio of his friend and countryman, M. Ross. He 
was in famous spirits, and full of the very latest idea 
that has fascinated this most versatile and quick-witted 
of men. M. Bjornstjerne Bjornson is one of the 
veterans — he is half-way between sixty and seventy, 
and does not seem more than ^rve and fifty — in the 
campaign for peace. He has contended for arbitra- 
tion, for disarmament, for everything, in short, that 
makes for progress, even before the Tsar was born. 
To him, therefore, more than to most men, the Peace 
Rescript was welcome. He was full of interest in all 
that I had to tell him about Russia and her ruler, and, 
like every one else with whom I have had the oppor- 
tunity of speaking on the subject, he rejoiced with 
exceeding great joy on hearing how things stood. As, 
indeed, he had good cause. For everything that 
the friend of peace could hope for is true, and true 
to an extent which neither M. Bjornson nor any 
one else dared to venture would come true in our 
time. 

" But, after all " — for even M. Bjornson has a 
" but " — « But, after all," he said, " I am not very 



228 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

sanguine about the Great Powers. They are one and 
all but beasts of prey." I vehemently objected, and, 
indeed, considering how the Peace Conference came 
to be the great hope of mankind, not without cause, 
against such a summary method of classification. But 
M. Bjornson paid no heed to my protest. " I am con- 
cerned," he went on, " about the smaller States, the 
little Powers. What is to come of them at the Con- 
ference ? " " What about the little Powers ? " I asked. 
" Are you not satisfied that they should have been in- 
vited to the Conference? Never before were the 
minor States invited equally with their more powerful 
neighbors to such an international assembly." " That 
is all very well," he replied, " but it is not enough. I 
am anxious to see something more than that. I want 
to see the smaller States group themselves together, 
so as to act and speak with effect. Each by itself can 
do nothing. In a league, or federation, or neutrality, 
they might be a very potent influence in international 
affairs." 

" I entirely agree with you," I replied, " and in Bel- 
gium at the very beginning of my tour I repeatedly 
wrote and spoke urging upon Belgium the importance 
of taking the lead in the matter. It would be a great 
opportunity for the King of the Belgians, who has 
never heretofore had a wide enough field for the exer- 
cise of his statesmanship." 

"Do you think," said M. Bjornson, "that King 
Leopold is the best man to undertake the organization 
of the small States?" "Who else would you sug- 



THE MINOR STATES OF EUROPE 229 

gest?" I asked. "The Queen of Holland is too 
young. The King of Denmark is too old. The Presi- 
dent of the Swiss Federation is not known well 
enough. The King of Portugal has neither the en- 
ergy nor the ambition nor the central position. And 
your King, what about him? " 

" Why do you think it must be a king? " he asked; 
" would not some statesman be even better? " " But 
where will you find your statesman? " I answered. 
Then M. Ross broke in. " You have not far to seek ; 
you will find him in this very city. There is no man 
better than Baron de Bildt, the Minister of Sweden. 
He is a statesman of the first rank, a diplomatist, a 
scholar, and a man who has all the qualities that you 
need/' 

M. Boss did not exaggerate the capacity of the 
statesman he named. Three years Baron de Bildt 
declined the Ministerial post offered him by the king, 
which is now held by Count Douglass, and although 
he is but the representative of a small State, no one 
stands higher in the opinion of those who know than 
Baron de Bildt. But postponing for the moment the 
consideration of the man to do the work, I asked M. 
Bjornson what was the work that he wanted him to 
do. " I want," said M. Bjornson, " to secure an 
understanding among the small States before the Con- 
ference meets, so that when the representatives of the 
Powers meet, they will find that they are face to face, 
not with a disunited group of powerless little States, 
but with a federation representing 27,000,000 of 



230 



THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 



Europeans, who are determined to act together to se- 
cure their safety, and to obtain a guarantee of their 
neutrality.' 7 

" What States do you mean? " I asked. From his 
reply I have constructed the following table, with the 
aid of the " xllmanach de Gotha" : — 



' Population. 

Belgium 6,0C0,000 

Denmark 2,000,000 

Holland 5,000,000 

Portugal 4,700,000 

Sweden 5,000,000 

Norway 2,000,000 

Switzerland 3,000,000 



Area in 
kil. car. 

29,500 

38,000 

33,000 

89,000 

450,000 

322,000 

. 41,000 



27,700,000 . 1,002,500 



Army on 
Peace 
Footing. 

50,000 

11,000 

29,000 

26,000 

39,000 

20,000 



175,000 



M. Bjornson refused to regard the Southeastern 
States as eligible members for his League of Neutral- 
ity. He said they were full of their own ambitions, 
and some of them at least were by no means contented 
with their frontiers. But it may be worth while not- 
ing the statistics of these States, which have equally 
been invited to the Conference : — 



1 Bulgaria 3,300,000 

2 Servia 2,300,000 

3 Montenegro 230,000 

4 Greece 2,500,000 

5 Roumania 5,500,000 



, 94,000 . 

, 48,000 . 

. 9,000 . 

. 65,000 . 

131,000 . 



45,000 
23,500 

25,000 
58,000 



13,830,000 



,347,000 



151,500 



THE MINOR STATES OF EUROPE 231 

Altogether, the small States represent a population 
of 41,000,000, and an army on a peace footing of 320,- 
000 men, not reckoning the Swiss and Montenegrins, 
every man of whom is trained to arms. 

Clearly, the small States may claim to be regarded 
as constituting a conglomerate of population equal to 
that of any great Power. Their influence in the Euro- 
pean Concert, so far, at least, as the Northwestern 
States are concerned, would be solely for peace. They 
would constitute a most valuable element in the bal- 
ance of power. But will they be wise enough to rec- 
ognize their common interests and bestir themselves 
to make common cause in the Areopagus of the Na- 
tions? Time will show. But it will not be M. Bjorn- 
son's fault if they do not bestir themselves, and that 
without delay. 



PART IV 

RUSSIA OF THE RESCRIPT 

CHAPTER I 

AT ST. PETERSBURG IK 1898 

When I was in Berlin, the Kaiser and his counsel- 
lors were making holiday preparatory to the Imperial 
tour to the Holy Land. The Kaiser was stag-shooting 
in the deer-forests in the extreme east of his dominions. 
One of the great events chronicled by the Berlin news- 
papers was the shooting of a stag with a greater num- 
ber of points on his antlers than had ever been secured 
as a trophy by any huntsman in Germany for more 
than two hundred years. We were reminded of this 
Imperial sport by the decoration at the railway sta- 
tions through which we passed immediately before 
crossing the Russian frontier. 

Russia has changed but little in ten years. One 
change there was, and that not a change for the better, 
so far as the traveller is concerned. The familiar 
German names of the stations had undergone an un- 
familiar metamorphosis. Wirballen, the frontier sta- 
tion, where the incoming traveller has his first experi- 



234 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

ence of the indispensableness of the passport, is now 
Wirballavo, and so on all along the line. The old 
familiar names, some of which are branded deep on 
the memory of Europe in connection with the ever 
memorable retreat from Moscow, have now been dis- 
guised past all semblance of their former selves in the 
rage for Russofying everything which has been the 
fashion for some years past in Muscovy. 

In St. Petersburg itself little or nothing seemed to 
have changed. There were the old landmarks, the 
familiar churches and cathedrals; even the old pave- 
ment was much as I had seen it ten years before. The 
only change was the improved lighting of the Nevski 
Prospect, and the work which is going on all over the 
town in the laying down of electric mains for the fur- 
ther electric lighting of the city. To any electrical 
engineer accustomed to the heavy work needed for 
laying an electric cable through the streets of an Eng- 
lish or American city, the rough-and-ready, happy-go- 
lucky fashion in which the electric cable was laid down 
in the streets of St. Petersburg would seem little short 
of suicidal. They simply dug a long trench in the 
soil beneath the uneven cobble-stone surface of the 
roadway, uncoiled the electric cable from a huge roll, 
laid it in the trench, and then tumbling the loose earth 
on the top, restored the cobble-stones as they were be- 
fore, when the main was supposed to be laid. There 
was a good deal of talk in town of a company for sup- 
plying electricity by utilizing the falls of Imatra in 
Finland. By this means it was confidently expected 



AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 1898 235 

that in a year or two St. Petersburg would be the best 
lighted city on the Continent, and that the slow-mov- 
ing trams and familiar droskies would be superseded 
by the electric trolley and motor-cars. The costless 
drainage of the Finnish wilderness would, it was cal- 
culated, enable the Russians to supply light and force 
to the city of Peter the Great at a cheaper rate than 
is possible elsewhere in the Old World. There was 
one other change noticeable in the droskies. They 
are all now fitted with hoods similar to those that fold 
backwards in a child's perambulator. The hood does 
not cover the drosky, but it is very convenient for the 
traveller. While w T e were in St. Petersburg in Octo- 
ber, we had the first foreshadowings of the coming 
winter in the shape of a fall of snow which, melting 
almost as soon as it fell, did not add to the amenities 
of existence. 

The Hotel d'Europe was overrun with English and 
Americans, chiefly Americans, who had returned from 
Siberia, where they had been travelling hither and 
thither in search of profitable concessions. They were 
all full of praises of the country, especially on account 
of its immense agricultural capacities, and some 
brought fabulous stories as to the richness of the 
mineral deposits. Life among the gold-miners of 
Siberia seems to be very much like life among the 
Argonauts of California in 1849, with the disagreeable 
addition of the presence of a great number of convicts, 
murderers, and others, who work fairly well in sum- 
mer time at the mines, but who in winter relapse into 



236 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

homicidal habits and murder for gain to an extent 
which casts the worst records of the Wild West into 
the shade. The American prospectors did not, how- 
ever, report that they had come upon many plums. 
The best locations had been already snapped up, 
chiefly by Frenchmen, who were paying prices which 
in the opinion of the prudent American and British 
speculator, were far in excess of anything justified by 
reasonable prudence. On the other hand, the Sibe- 
rian holders of good things were all suffering more 
or less from " swelled head/' and were refusing to part, 
except at fabulous prices. They all praised the Gov- 
ernment for the generous way in which it encouraged 
business enterprise, but expressed great regret that 
the Siberian railway could not be pushed forward more 
rapidly and worked more expeditiously, for it was 
nothing short of a sin to see so many hundreds of tons 
of good grain rotting by the wayside for want of roll- 
ing stock to carry it away. 

The greatest change of all that I noticed in St. 
Petersburg was that which had taken place at the Brit- 
ish Embassy. When I was last in Russia Sir Robert 
Morier was the representative of Her Majesty at the 
Russian Court. The late Lord Derby once told me that 
he considered Sir Robert Morier knew more about 
European politics than all the rest of the Diplomatic 
Corps put together. He was a man who had thrown 
himself with all the energy of a very passionate nature 
into the study of Russia and the Russians. He was a 
persona grata with the Emperor and with his leading 



AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 1898 237 

Ministers. Despite his somewhat brusque and savage 
manner when he was roused, the Russians liked him 
and trusted him, and M. de Giers told me that there 
would never be any difficulties between Russia and 
England so long as Sir Robert Morier remained at St. 
Petersburg. But alas ! the place that knew Sir Robert 
Morier now knows him no more. Since he reigned 
as a kind of British Tsar in the Embassy on the Neva, 
the familiar house near the Troitsky Bridge has seen 
three fresh occupants — Sir B. Lascelles, Sir Nicholas 
O'Conor, Sir Charles Scott. The last named, who is 
the present occupant of w T hat is perhaps the most re- 
sponsible post in the British diplomatic service, is a 
newcomer, suddenly pitchforked from Copenhagen to 
St. Petersburg. His appointment excited general 
surprise, and probably in no place more keenly than 
in the breast of Sir Charles Scott himself. The only 
explanation that was given was that Sir Charles Scott 
had been for some years a colleague of Count Mura- 
vieff at the Danish Court, and it was supposed he 
w r ould be able to understand the idiosyncrasies of 
the Foreign Minister better than anyone who was a 
complete stranger. Count MuraviefiPs appointment, 
which surprised Europe, had as its sequel the appoint- 
ment of Sir Charles Scott, which in a smaller way 
was equally surprising. Sir Charles is a North of 
Ireland man, almost as strong an anti-Home Ruler as 
Sir Robert Morier, and equally familiar with the Ger- 
man language. He had served with Sir Edward 
Malet at Berlin, and twenty-two years ago had been 



238 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

attached at the Embassy, under Lord Augustus Lof tus, 
in St. Petersburg. He is a well-meaning man with 
the best intentions; but it will need a long course of 
Russian winters before the frost matures his intellect 
so as to give it the keen edge and temper of his pre- 
decessor, Sir Robert Morier. The disadvantage of 
holding an appointment at a court like Copenhagen 
is that it is a kind of diplomatic hibernation, during 
which mental alertness, continually stimulated in the 
great capitals, is apt to lose its spring. 

Count Muravieff, the titular head of the Foreign 
Office, whose appointment was generally attributed to 
the influence of the Empress-Dowager — an imputation 
which that august lady is said to repudiate as a cal- 
umny — left Russia immediately before my arrival. 
We had met ten years before at the Russian Embassy 
in Berlin, when no one anticipated he was destined to 
so sudden and remarkable a promotion. We met 
again in the hotel at Sebastapol as I was leaving Rus- 
sia. He had just returned from his European tour, 
and was repairing to Livadia. When I was at Berlin, 
an interview with a distinguished Russian diplomatist 
appeared in the Tageblatt. I was confidentially as- 
sured that the diplomatist in question was none other 
than Count Muravieff, to whose views I naturally 
turned with considerable interest. According to this 
authority, the Count had declared that England was 
the enemy of the pacific aspirations of the Tsar. Eng- 
land's motto had ever been to divide and conquer. 
Rome in her worst days of Imperial ambition was a 



AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 1898 239 

sucking child compared to John Bull. So terrible, 
indeed, did this ogre appear in the interview, that it 
was not surprising to learn that nothing could save 
civilization from his fangs but a European coalition 
which would draw the teeth and clip the nails of this 
continent-devouring monster. When I reached St. 
Petersburg I naturally inquired as to the authenticity 
of this extraordinary interview. It was, of course, 
emphatically disclaimed. Some said that the inter- 
viewer had written the interview up to suit the Ger- 
man market. Others denied that there had been any 
interview at all; but if so, the Tageblatt must have 
been hoaxed, and Count Muravieff had been once 
more made the victim of the astonishing series of mis- 
conceptions which cause him to be so cruelly misunder- 
stood both in Russia and abroad. 

I had heard a good deal before I came to Russia of 
a ferocious anti-English feeling which found expres- 
sion in the St. Petersburg press, and I therefore made 
it my business to take the earliest possible opportunity 
of making the personal acquaintance of the chief 
Anglophobe on the Russian press. I found it was a 
case illustrating the old saying, " There is no hate like 
love to hatred turned." The journalist in question 
had at one time been a great Anglophil, and was still 
an enthusiastic student of our literature. But English 
foreign policy had been too much for him; and from 
loving us he had swept round to detesting us with a 
whole heart fervently. He began our interview by 
declaring with great emphasis that the Russians were 



240 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

far too Christian, far too good-hearted, too amiable 
and too forgiving, and that therefore it was his duty to 
preach always hatred, hatred, hatred of the English! 
This was a promising beginning; but when we came 
to close quarters, and I ascertained what it was that he 
detested so heartily, I found that the sins he hated, I 
hated also, and had probably denounced much more 
vehemently in England than he had ever done in 
Russia. In any case, he was much better informed 
and much more sane in his appreciation of the Conti- 
nental position than are most Russophobist writers of 
the English press against whom he may be placed, as 
an unfortunate specimen of a journalist whose pen 
does not make for friendship and good understanding 
between the two nations. There is very much of a 
muchness between the complaints brought by the anti- 
English writers in St. Petersburg and the stock accu- 
sations of our anti-Russian writers in London. In 
fact, the same articles might often do service in both 
countries, English being substituted for Russian and 
Russian for English, according as they were published 
in London or St. Petersburg. Hatred, malice and 
uncharitableness find plenty of material on which to 
exercise their malevolent activity in the military and 
diplomatic achievements of both Empires. 

In discussing the causes which led some Russians to 
regard England with antipathy, there were many par- 
ticulars alleged, Mr. Chamberlain's " long spoon " 
speech being mentioned, but it did not occupy as 
conspicuous a place as might have been expected. 



AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 1898 241 

Speeches, with Russians, always count less than acts. 
The appointment of Lord Curzon to the Viceroyalty 
of India was regarded as a far more significant illustra- 
tion of English hostility to Russia than all the speeches 
of all the Russophobists put together. Lord Curzon 
stoutly repudiated the imputation of being an enemy 
of Russia's on the eve of his departure for India, and 
expressed himself in terms of unimpeachable correcti- 
tude as to his desire to be on the best terms with his 
great Northern neighbor. The memory of our breach 
of faith in relation to Chitral sticks in the Russian 
memory; but even about this they do not say anything 
stronger than was said by those who expressed the 
unanimous opinion of the Rosebery Cabinet. About 
AVei-IIai-Wei very little was said, it being regarded 
as only another instance of the inveterate practice of 
England always to look about for an opportunity to 
do something disagreeable to Russia. 

A very excellent lady in St. Petersburg, who was a 
great friend of Prince LobanofFs, was deploring the 
great losses which Russia had sustained in the extinc- 
tion of that great intellect. " Yes," I said, " great 
intellect, no doubt, but he was very hostile to Eng- 
land." " And how can any Russian help being hostile 
to England," she exclaimed, " when England is always 
playing us such nasty tricks? " It was a genuine out- 
burst of real feeling, and it probably expresses more 
succinctly than any more labored speech the feeling of 
Russians concerning our attitude towards them. An 
Englishman often does not seem to be happy unless 
16 



242 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

he can do an ill turn to a Russian. Sir Howard Yin- 
cent, who certainly cannot be regarded as belonging 
to the household of faith, who has, indeed, had his 
habitation for the most part among the dragons of 
Eussophobia, was profoundly impressed, when visiting 
Russia last year, with the universal conviction of the 
Russians that wherever they went and whatever they 
did, they would always find " the Englishwoman " — 
the Angiichanka, the Queen — popping up in order to 
thwart and annoy them. 

The chief mischief, however, in this as in other 
things is done not by the diplomatists, not even by 
the Admirals, so much as by the press. If my excel- 
lent confreres were forbidden to write a single mali- 
cious, suspicious or uncharitable article upon the 
action of Russia until they could read, even with the 
aid of the dictionary, a single sentence of the Russian 
language, there would be very little danger of a dis- 
turbance of the good relations between Russia and 
England. 

Since my last visit, ten years ago, death has made 
considerable havoc in the ranks of Russian statesmen. 
Very few of those who held portfolios in 1888 were 
still in office in 1898. There was, however, an excep- 
tion. M. PobedonostsefT, who was Procurator of the 
Holy Synod during the reign of Alexander III., is 
still holding the same post under Nicholas II. The 
position of M. PobedonostsefT is unique. No Minister 
has held office so long, and no other Minister has pre- 
sided over the education of two Emperors. He is also 



AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 1898 243 

the only Russian Minister who has written books deal- 
ing with matters of general interest lying outside his 
immediate sphere. No Russian Minister is so dis- 
tinctively Russian, and at the same time so keenly in- 
terested in the doings of the world outside the Russian 
frontier. M. Pobedonostseff keeps himself constantly 
informed as to the literary, political, and philosophical 
movement in the West of Europe. He is a great stu- 
dent of English literature; his library table is always 
strewn with the latest magazines and newest books that 
are issued from London, and no one could be at the 
same time more careful to keep himself au courant 
with Western thought than the man who, of all others, 
may be regarded as the jealous guardian of Russian 
orthodoxy against any Western influences. In my 
" Truth about Russia " I devoted well-nigh sixty pages 
to a sustained invective against M. Pobedonostseff and 
the whole system of ecclesiastic intolerance of which 
he is the official exponent. In the course of several 
pages I expounded with considerable vehemence the 
only conception of the system of the Procurator of the 
Holy Synod which was possible to an English Noncon- 
formist reared in the straitest traditions of the sect 
of which Oliver Cromwell is the patron saint. I had 
called M. Pobedonostseff, Torquemada, Diocletian, 
and all other kinds of amiable epithets, and, therefore, 
I should have had no reason to complain if he had 
placed every obstacle in the way of my return to 
Russia, or the prosecution of my mission there. So 
far from this being the case, I must do M. Pobedonost- 



244 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

serf the justice of admitting that, instead of resenting 
my denunciation of him, lie heaped coals of fire upon 
my head by treating me with exceptional kindness and 
consideration. lie invited me to his house at Tsarskoe 
Selo, and I had the privilege of two long conversations 
with him upon all manner of subjects, from the latest 
fashion in English novels to the persecution of the 
Stundists. It was an intellectual treat to sit at the 
feet of the Russian Gamaliel, even although you were 
utterly unable from temperament, education, or en- 
vironment to accept his eloquent vindication of the 
necessity for secluding the Russian peasant from the 
perils of a heretical propaganda. In his book, " The 
Reflections of a Russian Statesman," M. Pobedonost- 
sefT surveyed the Eastern World in its later develop- 
ments of democratic freedom, and proclaimed aloud 
that he found no good in it. From head to foot, the 
Western system of modern democracy was full of 
wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; there was 
no health in it. One hundred years after the out- 
break of the French Revolution, the West is more dis- 
posed to agree with its Russian mentor than at any 
former period. 

Two eminent statesmen of England and France 
were discussing the other day the sombre picture 
which M. Pobedonostseff gives in his book of the 
decadence of Western democracy. They both agreed 
that black as was the picture which the Russian Jere- 
miah had painted, each of them could have given him 
many points which would have enabled him to make 



AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 189S 245 

it much blacker. Democracy seen from the inside 
seemed to them even more seamy than it appeared to 
M. Pobedonostseff from the point of view of the out- 
sider. ]STo one can look upon the condition of things 
either in France, Austria, or Italy without feeling that 
the devil's advocate has got a very strong brief when 
he undertakes to plead against what was at one time 
the almost universally accepted optimism of the 
Liberal. 

M. Pobedonostseff represents in Russia the same 
kind of sentiment which prevails in most country 
vicarages and in rural districts where the parson and 
the squire agree in regarding the intrusion of the dis- 
senter as a letting loose of one of the plagues of Egypt. 
There is much more excuse for M. Pobedonostseff than 
there is for the country parson, but their ideas are 
identical. Each uses the power which he has to the 
best of his ability to preserve the unity of the faith 
among the flock intrusted to his care. Both regard 
the masses of the people as children from whom as 
faithful guardians they must keep the poisonous influ- 
ences of schism and heresy. Clerical intolerance in 
this country has had its claws clipped and its teeth 
drawn. In Russia that process is still to come, but 
it will not come as long as M. Pobedonostseff is to the 
fore. He is still hale and vigorous, and, despite his 
seventy years, he is much more hearty than many 
English statesmen of sixty. In ten years he did not 
seem to have aged in the least. He was quite as free 
from the illusions of youth ten years ago as I found 



246 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

him last year. It is, perhaps, impossible to expect a 
conservative statesman of seventy to share the gen- 
erous enthusiasm of youth, but he is by no means of 
a hide-bound or unsympathetic disposition. He was 
particularly pleased with a charming book on Burma, 
the author of which had drawn a much idealized 
picture of Buddhism. I also have to acknowledge 
that M. PobedonostsefT, by his voluntary and power- 
ful initiative, smoothed all difficulties in the way of 
my access to the Emperor. When I left Russia in 
1888, nothing seemed to me more absolutely impos- 
sible than that I should return ten years later and be 
indebted to the Russian Torquemada for my introduc- 
tion to the young Emperor. 

In St. Petersburg almost everywhere I found a very 
strong feeling against the Armenians. It is a fixed 
idea among Russians that England had created the 
Armenian difficulty in order to embarrass Russia. 
"When asked for the grounds of this extraordinary 
theory, there was no hesitation in supplying the data 
upon which this superstructure had been reared. It 
must be admitted that they were much more substan- 
tial than most of the foundations on which national 
jealousy builds a superstructure of falsehood. The 
Russians began by pointing out that the Armenian 
difficulty owes its existence to the intervention of Eng- 
land at the Berlin Conference. If Lord Beaconsfield 
and Lord Salisbury had left the Treaty of San Stef ano 
alone, Russia would have had a treaty right and 
an assured position for protecting the Armenians 



AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 1898 247 

against the Turks. Instead of permitting Russia to 
discharge the responsibilities she had undertaken, 
England interfered, cancelled the Russian guarantee, 
and superseded it by an ineffective international 
undertaking on the plea that everything relating to 
Turkey was a European concern, and that it was con- 
trary to the Treaty of Paris to make single-handed 
bargains with the Sultan as to the reform of any part 
of his empire. At the same moment that England 
was mutilating the Treaty of San Stefano on this pre- 
text, she was concluding secretly a convention with 
Turkey by which she placed herself in an exceptional 
position by a separate agreement with the Ottoman 
Empire in virtue of which she was allowed to occupy 
Cyprus. From that time, they maintain, England 
has done nothing but foment discontent in Armenia, 
knowing that it would make trouble for Russia. Eng- 
land, they say, operated through the American mis- 
sionaries who educated the Armenians in their schools, 
filled them with political aspirations, and provoked 
the insurrectionary movement which brought about 
the atrocities. If you object that this was done by 
Americans and not by British, they reply that the 
Americans and English work together in Asia Minor 
like right and left hands. The American missionary 
stirs up the trouble and the British Consul protects 
him. But for these two agencies the Armenians would 
never have provoked the reprisals which made the 
world shudder. By thus forcing the Armenian ques- 
tion to the front, England placed Russia in a disagree- 



248 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

able dilemma. The Armenians wished to form an 
Armenian principality like Bulgaria, with the avowed 
object of working for the unification of Armenia, even 
at the cost of the dismemberment of the Russian Em- 
pire. In the Caucasus the Russian administration is 
practically in the hands of the Armenians. The 
Armenian, who is extremely clever, not very scrupu- 
lous, and who has considerable political faculty, has 
monopolized the administration. At present he is 
prosperous and fairly content, but he cherishes aspira- 
tions after the revival of a great Armenian kingdom 
somewhat similar to those which the Poles cherish for 
the revival of the kingdom of Poland. To create an 
independent Armenia in Asia Minor would be to set 
up a standard round which to rally all the Armenian 
subjects of Russia. The prospect of establishing this 
centre of Armenian nationality was certainly not an 
inducement calculated to encourage Russian states- 
men to face the risk of intervention in Turkey. The 
creation of an Armenian nationality also was a difficult 
question, because the Armenians are so mixed up with 
the Kurds, that if the Turkish authority were elimi- 
nated from Armenia, and no foreign force introduced, 
the result would be, not an independent and self-gov- 
erning free Armenia, but a province in which the 
Armenians would be harried to the bone by the domi- 
nant Kurd, who for centuries has regarded the Ar- 
menian very much as wolves regard sheep. If any- 
thing useful were to be done in Armenia for liberty 
and the protection of life and property of the luckless 



AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 189S 249 

Armenians, it could only be done by the introduction 
of an adequate military force, and Kussia was the only 
Power from which such a force could come. But the 
Russians, who remember what the Austrians had to 
face in Bosnia, vehemently resisted the suggestion that 
they should undertake the pacification of Armenia. 
The mere fact that it was favored in England led them 
to suspect that it was a trap, and they regarded the 
suggestion that they should pacify Armenia as an 
unmasking of the English design to weaken and em- 
barrass Russia by encouraging her in a profitless and 
costly enterprise which would waste her resources and 
divert her energies. Armed intervention in Armenia 
involved the risk of war. Russia had enough war in 
1877 to last her for the rest of this century. To jus- 
tify their reluctance to embark upon the Armenian 
Crusade, they fell back upon all manner of pretexts. 
The Armenians, for instance, were not Greek Ortho- 
dox, neither were they Slavs. Russia formerly used 
to defend the cause of Christians of the East regard- 
less of nationality or of race. But she had grown 
wiser with painful experience; she was no longer to 
be the champion of the Christian East. France and 
Germany could, if they chose, wrangle for the right 
of the protectorate of the Roman Catholics, but Russia 
would stick to the Orthodox, and not only to the Ortho- 
dox, but to the Slavonic Orthodox. As for the Arme- 
nians, they were very well capable of taking care of 
themselves. The Russians know the Armenians, and 
do not like them. There is a saying which the Rus- 



250 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

sians are never tired of repeating, that it takes two 
Greeks to swindle a Jew, two Jews to cheat the devil, 
but it takes two devils to cheat an Armenian; from 
which it would seem that the intellectual capacity of 
the Armenian in matters of cheating or being cheated 
is very highly appraised by those who have most to do 
with them. Whatever the cause, or whatever the pre- 
text, there is no question about the fact that the Arme- 
nians of all races under the sun seem to be least in 
favor at St. Petersburg. Nevertheless, many Rus- 
sians felt very keenly and expressed very frankly the 
shame and indignation with which they regarded 
Prince LobanofT's policy in dealing with the Armenian 
question. The massacres in Constantinople brought 
this home very forcibly to the Russian conscience, and 
no one would be better pleased than the best Russians 
if the happy termination of the Cretan question re- 
sulted in the adoption of a more vigorous policy in 
dealing with Turkish misrule in Asia Minor. 

My stay in Russia was much too brief for me to at- 
tempt any study of the currents beneath the surface, 
especially those among the young men in the univer- 
sities. At the same time, going in and out in St. 
Petersburg society, it was impossible to turn a deaf 
ear to what you heard on every side — namely, that the 
students in St. Petersburg universities are all more or 
less in sympathy with the Socialism of Karl Marx in 
one or other of its forms. Of Nihilism you heard 
little or nothing. There were some who shook their 
heads gravely when questioned on the subject; and 



AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 1898 251 

the opinion was frequently expressed, especially 
among Americans, that the growth of great industrial 
communities in Southern Russia and in the neighbor- 
hood of the capital boded anything but good for the 
future tranquillity of the Empire. For the present, 
however, the chief social danger was not in the growth 
of revolutionary discontent so much as in the recur- 
rence of periods of great distress, which occasionally, 
as at present in certain districts in the Southeast 
Provinces, may almost attain the dimensions of a 
famine. 



CHAPTEE II 



THE PEACE KESCKIPT 



Russia, although a country of immense resources, 
which have as yet been very imperfectly developed, 
is, nevertheless, a country of poor men and poor 
women. There are a few individuals of very great 
wealth, there are many foreign companies developing 
the mineral and other resources of the country, and 
earning for their fortunate shareholders dividends that 
sometimes attain the noble dimensions of thirty-five 
and forty per cent.; but the great mass of the 129,- 
000,000 of population over whom the Tsar reigns as 
a kind of terrestrial Providence are very poor, and are 
only able to provide their daily bread from year's end 
to year's end by a life of hard industry, which, were 
it not for the combined influences of the weather and 
the Church, would be unremitting. The population, 
though poor, is frugal and prolific. It is increasing 
at the rate of two millions per annum. In 1910 the 
Russian people will have reached 150,000,000; be- 
tween 1930 and 1940, 200,000,000; and at the end 
of the twentieth century there will be in all probability 
300,000,000 Russians. The difference in density be- 
tween the populations of Western Europe and of Rus- 





Lf*m 




la Jr ^ M 




Hn^ v x ° w 




n |^ &^ 4 ^ -J 












1 FRANCE ^^^^-^AUSTRIA-HUNGARY^y 

L AWITZPS —00T 




\ A s ^fe / 


1 SPAIN 








P^jjto'Vi ^JHfc 



THE REST OP EUROPE INSIDE RUSSIA 



THE PEACE RESCRIPT 253 

sia is decreasing every day. It is true that the last 
census gives to Russia in Europe only 51 inhabitants 
per square mile, while in France there are 183, in 
Germany 235, in England 316, in Belgium 518. But 
to find this average immense deserts in the north and 
south are included. In the habitable districts a much 
higher average is attained — 90 to 114 in Muscovy, 181 
to 194 in Poland, 194 to 207 in the greater portion 
of the basin of the Dnieper. The birth-rate and death- 
rate are both phenomenally large (births 45 per 1,000, 
as against 30 in England and 22 in France), but the 
balance of life over death is two millions a year (death- 
rate 31 per 1,000, as against 19 in England). It is 
well for Europe that Russia has so immense a back- 
country, with territory all pegged out, in which her 
ever-swelling population can find maintenance. Noth- 
ing seems more obvious to the plain man, looking over 
the jealousies of nations, than the curious way in which 
people ignore serious dangers and alarm themselves 
about the very things which should minister to their 
sense of security. Take, for instance, this matter of 
the so-called Russian danger ; the alarmist looks at the 
map, sees the whole of Eastern Europe and of North- 
ern Asia labelled Russia, and he at once works him- 
self into a fidget as to the menace to the world implied 
in the allocation of so large a portion of its surface to 
the Russian race. But for the thousand persons who 
lie awake at night 'haunted by the extent that Russia 
bulks on the map, is there even one who spares a 
thought as to the one really serious fact in the situa- 



254 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

tion — namely, the balance of Russian births over Rus- 
sian deaths every twelve months? The advent of an 
invading army of two millions of future Russian citi- 
zens every twelve months upon the surface of this 
planet is surely a phenomenon infinitely more por- 
tentous than the acquisition by Russia of an ice-free 
port, or the rounding out of her frontiers in the heart 
of Central Asia. If that fact were duly kept in mind, 
the expanse of her territory would sink into its proper 
place as an element of reassurance. For a nation of 
129,000,000 that is increasing at the rate of two mil- 
lions per annum assuredly needs a continent in which 
to stretch itself. If the birth-rate rules the future, 
then the future is Russia's, hands down. Not even a 
death-rate nearly double that of Sweden can deprive 
her of that pride of place which enables her to distance 
even prolific Germany and the large-familied English. 
Fortunately she has all Siberia to people, and that 
immense expanse will for a century to come be cap- 
able of absorbing all the overflow of European Russia. 
The total population of Siberia at last census was only 
5,731,000. If for a moment we sever ourselves from 
the baleful infatuations of Russophobia, it is obvious 
that the great enemy is the Russian cradle, not the 
Russian army, and until you can provide against the 
rapid refilling of the cradle, all the diplomatic and 
military victories that can be scored off the Northern 
Colossus are but written in water* 

It is no doubt this fact, the social fact, the increase 
of mouths to feed, and the uncertainty of being able 



THE PEACE RESCRIPT 255 

to feed them, which is the real motive at the back of 
the Eescript. Russia, in the opinion of her sane and 
sober rulers, is not rich enough to go on wasting in- 
definitely her resources in expenditure on armaments. 
They are in charge of a vast undeveloped estate, and 
they want every penny that can be spared or that they 
can borrow for the development of that estate, not for 
the carrying on of lawsuits with neighbors across the 
fence. Russia, according to this year's budget, pro- 
poses to devote forty millions sterling to the construc- 
tion of railways, a sum six millions in excess of the sum 
demanded by the Ministry of War. Her railways, 
it is asserted by those who display the most pestilent 
ingenuity in devising pretexts for making themselves 
miserable, are all strategic military railways. They 
are strategic, no doubt; they are a part of a great 
strategic campaign which mankind is ever fighting 
against hunger, destitution, and barbarism. In one 
sense, every railway, even that supreme product of 
British civilization the London, Chatham and Dover 
Railway, is a military line; it connects the capital with 
the dockyards of Chatham and the military port of 
Dover. It is much more of a military line than the 
great Siberian Trunk Overland Railway, which the 
Russians are pushing on with such splendid energy for 
the development of the great waste continent which 
without a railway would continue waste. In the solu- 
tion of the social question, which means the ameliora- 
tion of the condition of the great masses of the human 
race, nothing could be more desired than that military 



256 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

empires should spend their resources in the making of 
railways rather than the building of ironclads. In- 
deed, it may be regarded as the latter-day equivalent 
of the prophecy of the old Hebrew, who, had he lived 
in these days, would not have talked about beating 
swords into ploughshares and the spear into pruning- 
hooks, but would assuredly have predicted as the mark 
of the Golden Age the transfer of credits from the 
Ministry of War to the Ministry of Ways and Com- 
munications, and regarded as the distinctive mark of 
the coming of the Kingdom of Peace the conversion 
of the money intended for quick-firing artillery into 
the purchase of locomotives and the laying down of a 
permanent way. 

The original genesis of the Peace Kescript may be 
traced back for at least eight years. At Lord Salis- 
bury's instance seven years ago a confidential State 
paper was prepared, in which the actual cost of mili- 
tarism in Europe was set forth in detail. It was 
shoAvn, for example, that during the six years ending 
in 1888 no less a sum than £974,715,802 was spent by 
France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, 
Russia, Spain and Italy for military and naval pur- 
poses alone. The memorandum embodying this and 
other not less striking facts was originally prepared 
for the exclusive use of the Cabinet; but Lord Salis- 
bury communicated it to the Emperor of Germany, 
who was so impressed by it that he privately intimated 
his intention of summoning a European Congress " to 
consider practical measures for assuring universal 



TEE PEACE RESCRIPT 257 

peace." As a preliminary the semi-official German 
press was instructed to ventilate the question, and it 
will be remembered that the summer of 1891 was 
largely occupied with this press campaign. The 
scheme met with a very unfavorable reception in 
I ranee, where, as now, it was urged that the question 
of Alsace-Lorraine stood in the way of any ideas of 
disarmament. Thereupon the German Emperor 
abandoned it, and the subject dropped for some years. 
One of the last statements made by Mr. Gladstone 
before he quitted office was to assure Mr. Byles, on 
February 11th, 1894, that he doubted whether the 
moment was opportune for initiating negotiations 
among other European Powers with a view to con- 
certed disarmament. About the same time Madame 
ISTovikofT wrote an earnest appeal in the Westminster 
Gazette in favor of something being done for the relief 
of Europe from the ever-increasing burden of arma- 
ments. Hardly two months later I stated in the pages 
of the Review of Reviews that I had " private intelli- 
gence from a sure source that the Emperor is giving 
his closest attention to the question as to whether some- 
thing cannot be done to relieve the intolerable burden 
of military expenditure." M. de Blowitz had already 
reported a conversation between the King of Denmark 
and a Spanish statesman, in which the Danish King- 
was reported as saying : — 

" I hope to live long enough to see Europe enter upon the 
pathway of military retrenchment, and to behold the sov- 
ereigns of Europe taking measures to protect their people 
17 



258 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

against the constantly increasing burden of military ex- 
penditure. 

" My dear son-in-law, the Tsar of Russia, whose mission 
consists in maintaining peace, is quite ready to enter upon 
this pathway, and my great and good friend, the Emperor 
of Austria, is equally disposed to do his utmost towards that 
end." 

He had not ventured, lie said, to speak to the Kaiser, 
for a young sovereign is always dreaming of winning 
new laurels. 

In the Review of Reviews of May 15th I formally 
pressed the question whether the time had not come 
for the people collectively to take a stand against the 
steady increase of armaments, and suggested that the 
true line to take was to seek an international agree- 
ment by which the Powers should hind themselves not 
to allow their military and naval budgets to pass be- 
yond their present limits, at least till the end of the 
century. I wrote : — 

The whole social question is bound up in this. "Were it 
possible for the great Powers not merely to agree to arrest 
the growth of their military and naval expenditure, but to 
reduce it all round, say by 10 or 20 per cent., there would be 
liberated a fund available for the purposes of social improve- 
ment which would in the course of a few years transform 
the whole social position. At present everything is blocked 
because there is no cash. . . . It is the responsibility of 
the English democracy to take the initiative in promoting 
if possible a simultaneous reduction of armaments all along 
the line. It is understood that the Tsar is earnestly desirous 
of moving in this direction as soon as the opportunity offers. 

The Arbitration Alliance agreed to take up the mat- 



TEE PEACE RESCRIPT 259 

ter in this country. The first public initiative in the 
matter was taken by a Conference of the representa- 
tives of all the Free Churches, which was held at the 
Friends' Meeting House, Devonshire Street, April 
17th. By this Conference an address was drawn up, 
from which the following is an extract : — 

There are abundant signs that throughout Europe the feel- 
ing of general unrest and almost of despair under the bur- 
dens of militarism is giving place to a growing hope in the 
possibility of a pacific issue from the present situation. The 
views of M. Jules Simon and others have awakened a wide 
response upon the Continent, alike from the highest and the 
humblest quarters. As professed followers of the Prince of 
Peace we cannot be silent at this juncture. We believe that 
in urging upon Her Majesty's Government in the name of 
Christianity the duty of availing themselves of the present 
opportunity, we are asking for a course of action which is 
in harmony with all that is noblest in our country's history. 

There is a widespread belief that the initiative can be best 
taken by Her Majesty's Government. The neutral policy of 
this country, the smallness of her offensive armaments, her 
insular position, the commanding personal influence of Her 
Majesty and the friendly relations in which she finds herself 
with all the European Powers, appear to give her a unique 
opportunity, and to impose upon her in this matter a unique 
responsibility. While not presuming to suggest the precise 
line of action which may be expedient, we desire earnestly 
to ask Her Majesty's Government to propose to the other 
Powers the adoption of some practical step designed to pro- 
mote the international reduction of armaments and the 
establishment of some permanent system of International 
Arbitration. 

We are aware of the practical difficulties that may lie in 
the way of action. But we have every confidence that, in 
considering this momentous question, Her Majesty's Govern- 
ment will approach it in the spirit of greatness proper to the 



260 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

great purpose in view and to the high influence which, under 
the blessing of God, England may exercise in the promotion 
of international peace. 

The following national Memorial was then drawn 
up for presentation to the British Government : — 

The continuous and unchecked growth of European arma- 
ments has now reached a point which necessitates some 
concerted action to secure relief. The pressure of military 
and naval expenditures threatens States with bankruptcy, 
cripples the industries and impoverishes the homes of the 
people, and diverts to wasteful preparation for slaughter 
funds that would otherwise be available for purposes of 
social amelioration and reform. 

This ruinous rivalry in armaments is the inevitable, al- 
though deplorable, result of the absence of any international 
understanding. It can only be arrested by an international 
agreement. 

We would, therefore, respectfully but earnestly suggest 
that communications should be opened with the European 
Powers, in order to ascertain whether it may not be possible 
as a first step towards arresting the further growth of na- 
tional armaments, and reducing burdens already almost 
intolerable, to secure a common and general agreement that, 
until the close of the century, no State will sanction any 
increase of its military and naval expenditure beyond the 
maximum of the estimates of the present year. 

As France is the chief and, indeed, almost the only 
source of danger to the peace of Europe, I asked M. 
Jules Simon what, in his opinion, would be the line of 
France on this subject. He wrote : — 

Senate, Paris, May 9th, 1894. 
You wish to ask me if France would be disposed to enter 
into an international agreement having for its end the arrest 



THE PEACE RESCRIPT 261 

of any increase of military or naval expenditure until 1900? 
I answer that I have not the least doubt of it. 

If there were any difficulty, it could only be in the case of 
the navy, as it is necessary to incur expense for repairs in 
order to prevent the decay of the ships. No one thinks of 
an augmentation of force. It will be, I repeat, very easy to 
come to an understanding upon this point. I believe that 
France would enter with empressement on the path of a 
diminution of expenses. We have not to fear the fate of 
Italy, but there is a general indignation against the ex- 
penditure which the armed peace entails. France is not at 
all for war. 

It is horrible to think that one is journeying every day 
towards the universal war which will be the cataclysm of 
history, and no one wishes it. The Emperor of Germany 
said to me himself that he would regard whoever forced on 
war as a criminal. 

I return to your question, and I reply with energy that 
France passionately desires peace, and that she would sup- 
port every attempt in that direction which would not 
threaten her honor or compromise her security. — Pray ac- 

cept ' etc " . Jules Simon. 

This Memorial, which commanded the sympathy of 
the leaders of both political parties, secured the enthu- 
siastic support of the representatives of labor, of reli- 
gion, and of our municipalities. It was signed by 
the official heads of almost every religious denomina- 
tion with one exception. His Grace the Archbishop 
of Canterbury was, unfortunately, not able to see his 
way to take part in the Memorial. This was not, of 
course, due to any lack of sympathy with its object, 
only to a disinclination due probably to his position to 
help those who are endeavoring by this means to place 
some limitation to the intolerable burdens of modern 



262 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

armaments. This, however, did not deter the Primate 
of Scotland and the Bishops of Durham, Ripon, Man- 
chester, Lichfield and Worcester from appending their 
names to the Memorial. 

Among the eighty members of Parliament who 
signed it Mr. Balfour was the most conspicuous. But 
the Ministers of the Front Bench were equally sym- 
pathetic, although, of course, they could not sign a 
Memorial addressed to themselves. 

The following letter, which Mr. Balfour addressed 
to Mr. Mark Stewart, M.P., who asked him to sign the 
Memorial, expresses the attitude of statesmen on both 
sides of the House : — 

4 Carlton Gardens, June 22nd, 1894. 
Dear Mark Stewart, — I, in common, I believe, with other 
persons who have considered the subject, see clearly the 
deep-seated evils which flow from the gigantic military ex- 
penditure in which every Government in Europe is involved. 
I need not say that I shall be glad to assist in any practical 
policy which seems likely to remedy or mitigate the disease. 
The object therefore of tne Arbitration Alliance has my 
hearty sympathy. — Yours very truly, 

Arthur James Balfour. 

It was signed by the Lord Mayors of London, York, 
and Dublin, the Lord Provosts of Edinburgh and Dub- 
lin, and the mayors of about fifty boroughs. Most of 
our distinguished men of letters, headed by Mr. Her- 
bert Spencer, signed the Memorial, which received 
altogether nearly 35,000 signatures. 

While the Memorial was still in course of signature, 



THE PEACE RESCRIPT 263 

but acting under the inspiration of the movement of 
which it was the visible outcome, Lord Rosebery com- 
municated with M. de Stael on the subject, suggesting 
the desirability of the initiative in this matter being 
taken by the Tsar. Hence, as the Westminster 
Gazette remarks, " the Tsar's proposal may fairly be 
called a British one. A very few years ago a British 
Prime Minister suggested to the Government of St. 
Petersburg that a conference for a stay of armaments 
or the reduction of armaments should be summoned, 
and that the right person to summon it was the Tsar 
of Russia. The suggestion was cordially received, 
but it was intimated that the time was hardly oppor- 
tune." The inopportuneness arose from the outbreak 
of the war between China and Japan. The death of 
Alexander III., nowhere so sincerely lamented as at 
the British Foreign Office, put a stop to further 
discussion. 

When the Memorial was complete, Lord Kimberley 
was asked to receive a deputation from the Arbitration 
Alliance in support of its prayer. He returned a 
coldly courteous refusal on the ground that the mo- 
ment was not propitious. M. Witte, the Russian 
Finance Minister, visited Vienna about the same time, 
and took advantage of the occasion to make a declara- 
tion on the subject which may be recalled with advan- 
tage to-day. He said: — 

It is to be regretted that the increase of armaments is still 
going on, despite the agreement on the part of the three 
most powerful sovereigns to maintain peace. Every new 



264 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

effort a State may make in this respect compels other States 
to go and do likewise, and the result is that the relations 
between the forces of the respective Powers remain as they 
were, while the general strength is fruitlessly exhausted. 
The impulse to the increase of the armaments did not ema- 
nate from Russia; but she cannot avoid following the im- 
perative example of other States. What a blessing it would 
be for all States if they could save half that expenditure! 

There the matter remained; war rather than peace 
became the watchword of Europe — and not of Europe 
only. The War Budgets of Britain, Russia, and the 
other Powers swelled every year. Had the truce or 
halt been cried in 1894 it would have saved the British 
taxpayer several millions a year. 

This may be regarded as having ended the first or 
preliminary movement in favor of international action 
for the stay of armaments. It was not till 1896 that 
the movement received a fresh start. In that year the 
Interparliamentary Conference of Peace, an associa- 
tion of comparatively recent origin, which has Mr. W. 
R. Cremer as its indefatigable secretary, met in Pesth. 
M. Basili, who is now the chief of the Asiatic depart- 
ment in the Russian Foreign Office, attended some of 
its meetings, took a deep interest in its proceedings, 
and reported to his Government strongly in favor of 
action in stay of armaments. His suggestion was not 
received with approval by his official superiors, and it 
remained for a time in abeyance. 

Then came a notable utterance which attracted but 
little attention at the time, but which can now be seen 
to have an important place in the evolution of the Re- 



TEE PEACE RESCRIPT 265 

script. Speaking at the Mansion Honse on November 
9th, 1897, the Marquis of Salisbury, after referring to 
the ever-increasing competition of the nations in arma- 
ments, said: — 

The one hope that we have to prevent this competition 
from ending in a terrible effort of mutual destruction — 
which will be fatal to Christian civilization — the one hope 
that we have is that the Powers may gradually be brought 
together to act together in a friendly spirit on all subjects 
of difference that may arise, until at last they shall be 
welded together in some International Constitution which 
shall give to the world, as the result of their great strength, 
a long spell of unfettered commerce, prosperous trade, and 
continued peace. 

After this M. Basili again renewed his representa- 
tions in favor of an attempt to arrive at an inter- 
national agreement on the subject. He was now 
established in the Foreign Office, and the suggestion 
commended itself to Count Lamsdorff. He submitted 
the proposal to the Emperor, who adopted it with en- 
thusiasm, and after a short time we had the Rescript. 

The secrets of the Russian Foreign Office are well 
preserved, and when the Ambassadors and Ministers 
accredited to the Russian Court attended the usual 
weekly reception at the Foreign Office on Wednesday, 
August 24th, not one of them had the faintest inkling 
of the surprise that was awaiting him. 

As each Ambassador entered the room, Count 
Muravieff took a paper from a pile ready on his table 
and handed it to the visitor, who ran his eye over it 
with some astonishment. The representatives of all 



266 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

the small States who were present also received copies 
of it in their turn. 

In forwarding this document to Lord Salisbury, Sir 
Charles Scott, Her Majesty's Ambassador in St. 
Petersburg, wrote in his dispatch of August 25th: — 

Count Muravieff begged me to remark that this eloquent 
appeal, which he had drawn up at the dictation of the Em- 
peror, did not invite a general disarmament, as such a pro- 
posal would not have been likely to be generally accepted 
as a practical one at present, nor did His Imperial Majesty 
look for an immediate realization of the aims he had so 
much at heart, but desired to initiate an effort the effects 
of which could only be gradual. 

His Excellency thought that the fact that the initiative 
of this peaceful effort was being taken by the Sovereign of 
the largest military Power, with resources for increasing its 
military strength unrestricted by Constitutional and Par- 
liamentary limitations, would appeal to the hearts and inn 
telligence of a very large section of the civilized world, and 
show the discontented and disturbing classes of society that 
powerful military Governments were in sympathy with their 
desire to see the wealth of their countries utilized for pro- 
ductive purposes rather than exhausted in a ruinous and, 
to a great extent, useless competition for increasing the 
powers of destruction. 

I observed, in reply, that it would be difficult to remain 
insensible to the noble sentiments which had inspired this 
remarkable document, which I would forward at once to 
your lordship, and I felt sure that it would create a profound 
impression in England. 

The Imperial Rescript was made known to the world 
by a Renter's telegram dated St. Petersburg, August 
27th. The Official Messenger published the follow- 
ing:— 



THE PEACE RESCRIPT 267 

By order of the Tsar, Count Muravieff, on August 24th, 
handed to all the foreign representatives accredited 
to the Court of St. Petersburg, the following com- 
munication: — 

" The maintenance of general peace and a possible re- 
duction of the excessive armaments which weigh upon all 
nations present themselves in the existing condition of the 
whole world, as the ideal towards which the endeavors of 
all Governments should be directed. 

" The humanitarian and magnanimous ideas of His 
Majesty the Emperor, my august master, have been won 
over to this view. In the conviction that this lofty aim is in 
conformity with the most essential interests and the legiti- 
mate views of all Powers, the Imperial Government thinks 
that the present moment would be very favorable to seeking, 
by means of international discussion, the most effectual 
means of ensuring to all peoples the benefits of a real and 
durable peace, and, above all, of putting an end to the 
progressive development of the present armaments. 

" In the course of the last twenty years the longings for a 
general appeasement have grown especially pronounced in 
the consciences of civilized nations. The preservation of 
peace has been put forward as the object of international 
policy; it is in its name that great States have concluded 
between themselves powerful alliances; it is the better to 
guarantee peace that they have developed in proportions 
hitherto unprecedented their military forces, and still con- 
tinue to increase them without shrinking from any sacrifice. 

" All these efforts nevertheless have not yet been able to 
bring about the beneficent results of the desired pacification. 
The financial charges following an upward march strike at 
the public prosperity at its very source. 

" The intellectual and physical strength of the nations, 
labor and capital, are for the major part diverted from their 
natural application, and unproductively consumed. Hun- 
dreds of millions are devoted to acquiring terrible engines of 
destruction, which, though to-day regarded as the last word 
of science, are destined to-morrow to lose all value in con- 
sequence of some fresh discovery in the same field. 



268 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

" National culture, economic progress, and the production 
of wealth are either paralyzed or checked in their develop- 
ment. Moreover, in proportion as the armaments of each 
Power increase, so do they less and less fulfil the object 
which the Governments have set before themselves. 

" The economic crises, due in great part to the system of 
armaments d Voutrance, and the continual danger which lies 
in this massing of war material, are transforming the armed 
peace of our days into a crushing burden, which the peoples 
have more and more difficulty in bearing. It appears evi- 
dent then that if this state of things were prolonged it would 
Inevitably lead to the very cataclysm which it is desired to 
avert, and the horrors of which make every thinking man 
shudder in advance. 

" To put an end to these incessant armaments and to seek 
the means of warding off the calamities which are threaten- 
ing the whole world, — such is the supreme duty which is to- 
day imposed on all States. 

" Filled with this idea, His Majesty has been pleased to 
order me to propose to all the Governments whose repre- 
sentatives are accredited to the Imperial Court, the meeting 
of a conference which would have to occupy itself with this 
grave problem. 

" This conference would be, by the help of God, a happy 
presage for the century which is about to open. It would 
converge in one powerful focus the efforts of all the States 
which are sincerely seeking to make the great conception of 
universal peace triumph over the elements of trouble and 
discord. 

" It would, at the same time, cement their agreement by 
a corporate consecration of the principles of equity and right 
on which rest the security of States and the welfare of 
peoples." 

Mr. Balfour, then temporarily in charge of the 
Foreign Office, replied on August 30th: — 

As the Prime Minister is abroad and the Cabinet scattered, 
it is impossible for me at present to give any reply, but I feel 



THE PEACE RESCRIPT 269 

confident that I am only expressing the sentiments of my 
colleagues when I say that Her Majesty's Government most 
warmly sympathize with and approve the pacific and eco- 
nomic objects which his Imperial Majesty has in view. 

The comments of the European press showed a 
tendency to misconstrue the meaning of the Emperor. 
Consequently on Sunday, September 4th, the follow- 
ing official communication appeared in the Journal 
de Saint Petersbourg : — 

All the utterances of the foreign press regarding the Cir- 
cular of the 24th ult. agree in testifying to the sympathy 
with which the action of the Russian Government has been 
received by the whole world. A high tribute of acknowledg- 
ment is paid to the noble and magnanimous conception 
which originated this great act. The unanimity of welcome 
proves in the most striking manner to what a degree the 
reflections, which lay at the root of the Russian proposal, 
corresponded with the innermost feelings of all nations and 
their dearest wishes. 

On all sides people had come to the conclusion that con- 
tinuous armaments were a crushing burden to all nations, 
and that they constituted a bar to the public prosperity. 
The most ardent wish of the nations is to be able to give 
themselves up to peaceful labor, looking calmly to the 
future, and they perceive clearly that the present system of 
armed peace is in its tendency peaceful only in name. 

It is to the excesses of this system that Russia desires to 
put an end. The question to be settled is without doubt a 
very complicated one, and some organs of public opinion 
have already touched on the difficulties which stand in the 
way of a practical realization. Nobody can conceal from 
himself the difficulties, but they must be courageously con- 
fronted. 

The intention of the Circular is precisely to provide for a 
full and searching investigation of this question by an 



270 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

international exchange of views. Certain other questions 
difficult of solution but of not less moment have already 
been settled in this century in r, manner which has done 
justice to the great interests of humanity and civilization. 
The results which in this connection have been obtained at 
international conferences, particularly at the Congresses of 
Vienna and Paris, prove what the united endeavors of Gov- 
ernments can achieve when they proceed in harmony with 
public opinion and the needs of civilization. 

The Russian proposal calls all States to greater effort than 
ever before, but it will redound to the honor of humanity 
at the dawn of the twentieth century to have set resolutely 
about this work that the nations may enjoy the benefits of 
peace, relieved of the overwhelming burdens which impede 
their economic and moral development. 

There the matter remained for some time. When 
I was in St. Petersburg at the end of September, I was 
told that all the Powers save Great Britain and, I 
think, one other had replied. Lord Salisbury, who 
had then been a fortnight in London, had made no 
sign. The Daily News remonstrated. The British 
public began to express its sentiments in the usual way 
by public meetings and resolutions. But it was not 
until October 24th that the British Government for- 
mally accepted the Tsar's invitation. On that day 
Lord Salisbury wrote as follows to Sir Charles Scott, 
the British Minister at St. Petersburg: — 

Her Majesty's Government have given their careful con^ 
sideration to the memorandum which was placed in your 
hands on August 24th last by the Russian Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, containing a proposal of His Majesty the 
Emperor of Russia for the meeting of a conference to discuss 
the most effective methods of securing the continuance of 



TEE PEACE RESCRIPT 271 

general Peace, and of putting some limit on the constant 
increase of armaments. 

Your Excellency was instructed at the time by Mr. Bal- 
four, in my absence from England, to explain the reasons 
which would cause some delay before a formal reply could be 
returned to this important communication, and, in the 
meanwhile, to assure the Russian Government of the cordial 
sympathy of Her Majesty's Government with the objects and 
intentions of His Imperial Majesty. That this sympathy is 
not confined to the Government, but is equally shared by 
popular opinion in this country, has been strikingly mani- 
fested since the Emperor's proposal has been made generally 
known by the very numerous resolutions passed by public 
meetings and societies in the United Kingdom. There are, 
indeed, few nations, if any, which, both on grounds of feel- 
ing and interest, are more concerned in the maintenance of 
general Peace than is Great Britain. 

The statements which constitute the grounds of the Em- 
peror's proposal are but too well justified. It is unfortu- 
nately true that while the desire for the maintenance of 
peace is generally professed, and while, in fact, serious and 
successful efforts have on more than one recent occasion 
been made with that object by the great Powers, there has 
been a constant tendency on the part of almost every nation 
to increase its armed force, and to add to an already vast 
expenditure on the appliances of war. The perfection of 
the instruments thus brought into use, their extreme costli- 
ness, and the horrible carnage and destruction which would 
ensue from their employment on a large scale, have acted 
no doubt as a serious deterrent from war. But the burdens 
imposed by this process on the populations affected must, if 
prolonged, produce a feeling of unrest and discontent men- 
acing both to internal and external tranquillity. 

Her Majesty's Government will gladly cooperate in the 
proposed effort to provide a remedy for this evil; and if, 
in any degree, it succeeds, they feel that the Sovereign to 
whose suggestion it is due will have richly earned the 
gratitude of the world at large. 

Your Excellency is, therefore, authorized to assure Count 



272 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Muravieff that the Emperor's proposal is willingly accepted 
by Her Majesty's Government, and that the Queen will have 
pleasure in delegating a Representative to take part in the 
Conference whenever an invitation is received. Her Ma- 
jesty's Government hope that the invitation may be accom- 
panied by some indication of the special points to which the 
attention of the Conference is to be directed as a guide for 
the selection of the British Representative, and of the as- 
sistants by whom he should be accompanied. 

You will read this dispatch to the Minister for Foreign 
Affairs, and leave him a copy of it. 

After the replies were received tlie Continent began 
to reverberate with the reports of military and naval 
preparations in France and England. War seemed 
imminent for a time. Bnt Count Muravieff' s timely 
visit to Paris contributed materially to convince the 
French that they had better not resent too seriously 
the bullying talk too plainly audible across the Chan- 
nel. Captain Marchand was withdrawn from his 
untenable position, and the prospect of war died away, 
much to the regret of a small but influential party in 
England which lusted for an opportunity to " have it 
out with France " when she was isolated, distracted, 
and at a great disadvantage. But although war no 
longer seemed imminent, warlike preparations con- 
tinued on both sides. The Kaiser, returning from the 
East, immediately prepared to add 26,000 men to the 
army of the Fatherland. In St. Petersburg a feeling 
of profound discouragement prevailed. All the Gov- 
ernments had been polite, none of them had been in 
the least degree helpful. The masses to whom the 
Emperor had specially appealed had remained apa- 



THE PEACE RESCRIPT 273 

thetic. At the beginning of December so profound 
was the feeling of disappointment that it was almost 
decided to abandon the project. 

The design then entertained was to substitute for 
the great Parliament of the Nations summoned to deal 
practically with the greatest scourge of the peoples, 
a mere formal confabulation of the Ambassadors sta- 
tioned at St. Petersburg. Fortunately, when the 
horizon was the blackest, light rose in the West. The 
proclamation of the International Crusade of Peace 
in London, and the extraordinary effect produced 
throughout the whole European press by the an- 
nouncement of the proposed Pilgrimage of Peace, 
renewed the hope of the Russian Government that 
something after all might be accomplished. The half- 
formed determination to get out of the Conference by 
a mere ambassadorial palaver was abandoned, and on 
Monday, January 16th, a summary of a Russian Circu- 
lar was telegraphed to the Times by its St. Petersburg 
correspondent : — 

A Preliminary Interchange of Ideas. 
The Russian Circular explains that although the horizon 
has been somewhat overclouded since Count Muravieff sent 
out his first communication in August last, and although 
some of the Powers have even taken steps to increase their 
armaments, it is hoped that the general situation will again 
become calm and favorable to the success of this great hu- 
manitarian undertaking. 

Points for Discussion. 
Meanwhile, the Russian Government thinks it possible 
and advisable to have a preliminary interchange of ideas on 
18 



274 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

the subject between the Cabinets in order to prepare the 
way for diplomatic discussion. If the present moment is 
considered opportune, it would be desirable that an under- 
standing should be arrived at between the Powers on the 
following points: — 

(1) The Arrest and Reduction of Armaments. 
An agreement not to increase military and naval forces 
for a fixed period, also not to increase the corresponding 
War Budgets; and to endeavor to find means for reducing 
these forces and their Budgets in the future. 

(2) The Humanizing of War. 

The second division of the subjects suggested for discus- 
sion includes several proposals for multiplying the restric- 
tions placed by the Brussels Conference of 1874 on the bru- 
tality of warfare. These points are thus indicated: — 

(a) To interdict the use of any kind of new weapon or 
explosive or any new powder more powerful than that which 
is in use at present for rifles and cannon. 

(6) To restrict the use in war of existing explosives of 
terrible force. 

(c) To forbid the throwing of any kind of explosives from 
balloons or by any analogous means. 

{d) To forbid the use of submarine torpedo boats or 
plungers and any other similar engines of destruction in 
naval warfare. 

(e) To undertake not to construct vessels with rams 
(navires de guerre a Veperon). 

(f) To apply to naval warfare the stipulations of the Ge- 
neva Convention of 1864. 

(g) The neutralization of ships and boats for saving those 
shipwrecked during and after naval battles. 

(70 The revision of the declaration concerning the laws 
and customs of war elaborated in 1874 by the Conference of 
Brussels which remains unratified down to this day. 

(3) Mediation and Optional Arbitration. 
The third, and far the most important, section of the 
Circular suggests that the Powers should — 



THE PEACE RESCRIPT 275 

(a) Accept in principle the employment of good offices 
in mediation and optional arbitration in cases which lend 
themselves to such means in order to prevent armed con- 
flicts between nations. 

(b) Have an understanding on the subject of their mode 
of application, and 

(c) Establish some uniform practice in making use of 
them. 

As previously explained, nothing touching the political 
relations of States or the actual order of things as estab- 
lished by treaties will be admitted. 

These are the points which the Governments are invited 
to consider in view of a conference, which, it is suggested, 
should not be held in any capital of a great Power, where 
the concentration of various political interests might react 
unfavorably upon the progress and success of its labors. 

This, although only a summary, is perfectly authen- 
tic. And very satisfactory it is. It contains nothing 
that is new to those who have followed the subject 
closely. But it confirms and justifies all the asser- 
tions which have been made by the exponents of Rus- 
sian policy as to the real aim and drift of the ideas of 
Mcholas II. It dissipates the absurdities which have 
been diligently imputed to the Russian Government, 
and it confronts Europe with one of the most momen- 
tous and far-reaching issues that were ever submitted 
to an International Conference. This is good, very 
good, aud the more closely it is looked at the better 
it will appear to be. 

(1) Mediation and Optional Arbitration. 

Rightly to appreciate the immense importance of 
the memorandum it is necessary to reverse the order 



276 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

of its proposals, and begin with the last first. The 
Kussian Circular invites the Powers to arrive at a 
preliminary understanding on several points, of which 
the last in order but the first in importance is — 

to accept in principle the employment of good offices in 
mediation and optional arbitration in cases which lend them- 
selves to such means in order to prevent armed conflicts 
between nations; an understanding on the subject of their 
mode of application, and the establishment of some uniform 
practice in making use of them. 

"We have here for the first time clearly foreshadowed 
the establishment of the principle of Mediation and 
optional Arbitration as the basis of the settled Peace 
which the nations desire. It is the first tentative step 
taken by a responsible Government towards the reali- 
zation of the " one hope " which Lord Salisbury enter- 
tains as to the avoidance of a disastrous and suicidal 
war. 

As the first step towards the establishment of the 
" International Constitution " of which Lord Salis- 
bury spoke, the Tsar invites the Cabinets of the world 
to a preliminary interchange of ideas as to the " estab- 
lishment of some uniform practice in making use of " 
the mode of applying mediation and optional arbitra- 
tion as a means of preventing armed conflicts between 
the nations. It is well to note the careful moderation 
and extreme caution with which this vital new depart- 
ure is approached. There is no dangerous suggestion 
of the immediate creation of a Supreme Court of Arbi- 
tration, the constitution of which would to the jealous 



THE PEACE RESCRIPT 277 

susceptibilities of the Powers appear to be an infringe- 
ment upon the plenitude of their absolute sovereignty. 
There is not even a proposal for an agreement always 
to arbitrate in all cases before you fight. It is only 
proposed, in the first place, that Arbitration should be 
optional, and in the second place that it should only be 
invoked " in cases which lend themselves to such 
means." This is to recognize ah initio the broad dis- 
tinction which exists between questions that in the 
present state of national opinion can be arbitrated 
upon and those which are not capable of reference to 
an arbitral tribunal. The difference found very clear 
and decided expression in the last Anglo-American 
Arbitration Treaty. But all practical statesmen agree 
that the one thing of supreme importance is to make 
a beginning, to get some sort of international tribunal 
created and set to work. No matter how limited may 
be its scope, no matter how circumscribed its authority, 
the creation of such an international centre of pacific 
counsel and conciliation would be an enormous step 
forward in the evolution of the modern State. 

(2) The Arrest of Armaments. 
The second important proposal in the Circular is 
that which stands first in order. As has been repeat- 
edly stated, the Tsar wishes to arrive at 

an agreement not to increase military and naval forces for 
a fixed period, also not to increase the corresponding War 
Budgets; to endeavor to find means for reducing these forces 
and their Budgets in the future. 

That is the famous Halt or Arrest of Armaments which 



278 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

was four years ago first suggested in the Westminster 
Gazette by Madame XovikofT, after which it was for- 
mally mooted by the Kosebery Cabinet, and only 
abandoned because of the sudden outbreak of the 
Chinese-Japanese War. The suggestion for an inter- 
national quinquennium cannot be regarded as imprac- 
ticable. Germany voluntarily arranges her Naval 
Estimates for a term of six years, and her Army Bill 
fixes her expenditure for five years. What one Power 
can do all the Powers can do. Russia, which is the 
freest of all to do as she pleases, voluntarily takes the 
initiative in proposing that we should all subject our- 
selves to such a reasonable limitation of our liberty. 
The practical difficulties in the way of fixing the 
strength of the military and naval forces are not insup- 
erable, especially when supplemented by an agreement 
not to increase the War Budget. 

(3) Their Future Reduction. 
To arrive at a Halt or Arrest of Armaments is the 
first step towards the " endeavor to find means for re- 
ducing these forces and their Budgets in the future." 
That, however, we shall find, will be relegated to the 
future. It will at present only remain a pious opinion. 
It will be necessary to demonstrate the willingness and 
good faith of the Powers in maintaining the status quo 
before we can look for much progress in the shape of 
actual reduction. 

(4) The Humanizing of War. 
The second section of the Russian Circular will 



THE PEACE RESCRIPT 279 

come as a surprise to many, especially to those who are 
not aware that the only two great efforts that have been 
made in our time to humanize war both emanated 
from the Russian initiative. The Geneva Convention 
for the succor of the wounded, the Brussels Conven- 
tion prohibiting the use of explosive rifle bullets of 
war — both were held at the suggestion of Russia. 
Nicholas II. wishes to take up and carry to its logical 
conclusion the humanitarian work of his grandfather, 
the Emancipator of the Serfs, the liberator of Bul- 
garia. I do not think that his ideas are likely 
to be seconded by the other Powers. They will appeal 
to the sentiment of our people. They are entirely in 
our interest. But the attempt to limit the use of mur- 
derous inventions, high explosives, balloons, and sub- 
marine boats will never commend itself to the Powers 
whose one hope of destroying the naval supremacy of 
England is by the use of the very weapons the em- 
ployment of which the Tsar wishes to forbid. Russia 
has sovereignty on land, England on water. "What is 
more natural and desirable than that they should agree 
to confine warlike operations to the elements in which 
they are supreme, and forbid the extension of the area 
of justifiable homicide to the sky that is over the earth 
or the depths that lie beneath the surface of the sea? 
So far as we are concerned, we may heartily second 
the proposed interdict on inventions which would ren- 
der the life of a million-pound ironclad not worth six 
days' purchase after the outbreak of war. 



CHAPTEE III 

TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 

In the preceding chapter I have somewhat antici- 
pated the sequence of this chronicle in order to facili- 
tate reference to the diplomatic documents connected 
with this memorable State paper. 

I resume the narrative of my tour by reprinting 
here the substance of the two letters in which I sum- 
marized the result of my visit to St. Petersburg. The 
first appeared in the Daily News of October 15th, the 
second was written from Moscow on October 20th, 
1898. 

" "When the Lord turned again the captivity of 
Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our 
mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with sing- 
ing. Then said they among the heathen: The Lord 
hath done great things for them; the Lord hath done 
great things for us, whereof we are glad." 

In these familiar w T ords alone do I find adequate 
expression to the lift of heart which I have experi- 
enced on coming to St. Petersburg. From Brussels 
to Paris, from Paris to Berlin, my pilgrimage of peace 
had been but a dolorous way, growing ever darker and 
more dark, until it seemed as if there was no hope. 



TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 281 

But it is ever the darkest hour before the dawn. 
Here, where I have now spent several days in ascer- 
taining the central facts of the situation, it is " glad, 
confident morning again." The snow is beginning to 
fall in the streets of St. Petersburg, but in my heart 
" the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the 
flowers appear on the earth, and the time of the sing- 
ing of birds is come." For I have now satisfied my- 
self, and have absolute confidence in proclaiming 
aloud on the housetop, that all the gloomy and dis- 
heartening suggestions of sceptical pessimists are with- 
out foundation. In this proposal for the meeting of 
a Conference of the nations on the subject of disarma- 
ment there is no humbug, there is no nonsense. It 
may seem too good news to be true ; but it is true never- 
theless. The Tsar means business. He has com- 
mitted himself to this war against war with the same 
resolute determination and lofty enthusiasm that his 
grandfather launched the armies of Russia against the 
despoilers of Bulgaria. And, as in the case of Alex- 
ander II., it will not be the fault of the Tsar if the 
thing is not carried through to a triumphant close. 

It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this 
certainty, which to me stands up like a great Pharos 
of Hope in the midst of the clouds and mists that 
obscure the horizon. But that it is a certainty no one 
of the few but influential persons who are in the con- 
fidence of the Tsar has any doubt at all. 

The scheme of the Conference was conceived in a 
mind imbued from childhood with a horror of war and 



282 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

that passion for peace which distinguished his father. 
It was fostered by the continually increasing evidence 
as to the fatuous and suicidal results of the policy of 
beggar-my-neighbor which culminated in the promul- 
gation of the extra naval programme of the Russian 
Government last spring, which was answered by Mr. 
Goschen's supplementary naval programme of last 
summer. It found a congenial environment in the 
personal and domestic entourage of the Tsar, and 
finally it was launched with all the splendid audacity 
of youth. The Tsar felt that he could never make a 
more fitting exercise of his autocratic prerogative. He 
thus confronted and confronts Europe with an initia- 
tive of leadership which, while it confounds and dis- 
mays the blinking owls of the diplomatic ivy-bush, 
will more and more evoke, as the real truth becomes 
known, the enthusiasm of the peoples for the young 
Emperor of Peace. 

I admit frankly that this seems to be too good news 
to be true. But the answer of all those who are in a 
position to speak with an authority only second to that 
of the Emperor himself agree in asserting that it is 
true. Some deplore it, believing that in this false and 
sceptical generation such high ideals of youth are des- 
tined to be cruelly cut down by the sharp frost of 
experience. Others rejoice with trembling, hardly 
daring to make head against the flood of derision 
and suspicion which the press has let loose against the 
scheme. But all alike, whether they like it or whether 
they hate it, agree that the Emperor is thoroughly in 



TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 283 

earnest about the matter, and that there is on this sub- 
ject no question that he is master in his own house. 
Count MuraviefT will do his Imperial master's bidding. 
His ambition, his energy, and his detachedness of mind 
may make him a more effective instrument than one 
who was more heartily in accord with the order of 
ideas which possess the mind of the Tsar. Such, at 
least, is the hope for Count MuraviefT. But with 
whatever instruments he can find ready to his hand, 
the Tsar has gone to work to put the thing through. 

We are therefore face to face with the opportunity 
of the century, and woe be unto us if we do not avail 
ourselves of it to the uttermost of our ability ! Never 
since Mr. Gladstone published his famous Bulgarian 
pamphlet has so clear a clarion note rung upon the 
ear of the world. And not even in 1876 was there 
any issue presented to the conscience of mankind so 
wide in its scope, so vast in its results, as the impeach- 
ment of the armaments of the world by the Russian 
Tsar. From his watch-tower in Livadia Nicholas II. 
looks out over the armed camp of the world, through 
the tents of which he has sounded his Evangel of 
Peace. What will the answer be? It is a moment 
of profound suspense, for on that answer hangs the 
future of the world. 

As to the time and the place of the Conference, 
nothing has yet been decided. These details are left 
over to be discussed when all the replies come in. 
Russia has no wish to impose her will upon the other 
Powers. That which meets best the convenience of 



284 TEE EXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

the States represented she will accept. These ques- 
tions of detail will be arranged solely from one point 
of view, viz., how can they best secure the success of 
the object which the Emperor has at heart? This one 
thing he will seek, considering no minor question of 
importance except so far as it contributes to the reali- 
zation of his great ideal. Count Lamsdorff, who, in 
Count MuraviefFs absence, is now directing the Rus- 
sian Foreign Office, reminds me in many respects of 
his predecessor M. de Giers, whom I met ten years ago 
in the same office. That is to say, he is a man who 
impresses you with the honesty of his convictions and 
the sincerity of his words — a man sincerely desirous 
of peace, and thoroughly imbued with the sentiments 
of his Imperial master. 

The question of the extra naval programme to which 
Russia stands committed is frankly discussed. It was 
probably the immense object-lesson which that pro- 
gramme afforded, together with the corresponding 
programmes which it provoked in England, that con- 
vinced the Tsar that the moment had come for declar- 
ing war against war. I have, of course, no official 
authority to make any formal notification on this point, 
but it is everywhere assumed as a matter too obvious 
for remark that if the Conference meets and agrees 
upon a stay of armaments, Russia will be the first to 
stop the execution of her previous programme, so far 
as relates to all ships not already in course of construc- 
tion. I need hardly emphasize the significance of 
such an act on Russia's part. It would be the outward 



TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 285 

and visible sign of the inward grace which is animating 
the ruler of Russia. 

The programme of the Conference is not drawn up. 
There is no desire on the part of the Tsar to thrust any 
cut-and-dry proposal clown the throats of the other 
Powers. There is, indeed, a manifest shrinking from 
anything that might look like a desire to dictate or to 
presume in any way to influence the free deliberations 
of the representatives of the nations. But one thing 
is certain. ~No political or territorial question in dis- 
pute between the nations will be mooted at the Con- 
ference. It will no more deal with Fashoda than with 
the Philippines, and it is as absolutely debarred from 
touching the future of Alsace and Lorraine as it is 
from raising the question of the independence of Ire- 
land or Poland. Neither will there be any proposal 
for the disarmament of any national force at present 
in existence. What is sought is to make a beginning, 
a safe beginning, by arriving at a solid agreement 
against any further increase of armaments, which, if 
it lasted for only five years, w T ould serve as the founda- 
tion for indefinite progress in the direction of a pro- 
portionate and simultaneous reduction of the burden 
of armaments. 

The Tsar has taken the initiative; but that does not 
mean that he intends to ask the Conference to register 
any preconceived plan or scheme that may commend 
itself to his judgment. What he wishes is that an 
honest endeavor should be made by all the Powers to 
ascertain whether it is possible to arrive at any com- 



286 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

mon ground of agreement for checking the continu- 
ance and indefinite expansion of the ruinous game of 
beggar-my-neighbor. If there is any definite idea at 
the back of the Russian mind, it is that the status quo 
as it exists at this moment might with advantage be 
accepted as the normal maximum, and that all the 
nations might agree to cry halt at their present rate 
of naval and military expenditure. How this most 
desirable end should be secured, whether the status 
quo should be defined in terms of the contingents 
under arms or the ships on the Navy List, or whether 
it should be expressed in the figures of the expendi- 
ture on the Services, are matters upon which the Con- 
ference must be left quite free to decide. Where 
there is a will there is a way, and if the Tsar's desire 
is shared by the other nations, there is no question but 
that some definite resolution will emerge from the Con- 
ference which will operate as a very effective check 
upon the growth of the exactions of militarism. 

The prejudice that exists in many quarters against 
any humanitarian movement which is initiated in 
Russia is comprehensible, but it is unjust, and in the 
light of history it is absurd. To support Russia's initi- 
ative in such a matter does not in the least commit any 
one to approval of every detail of Russian internal or 
external policy. "What Englishmen are apt to forget 
is that it was Russia to whose initiative the world owed 
the two international Conferences which have done 
anything in our time to abate the horrors of war. The 
Conference which established the Red Cross move- 



TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 237 

ment was proposed by Russia, and so was the Confer- 
ence which forbade the use of explosive rifle bullets 
in warfare. The Russian Tsar, despot though he may 
have been, was a better friend to human liberty when 
he supported the cause of emancipation in America at 
a time when free England spoke with uncertain voice 
and her upper classes openly supported the slave 
power. ISTor should it be forgotten that it was the 
grandfather of the present Tsar who unsheathed the 
sword that liberated Bulgaria, while England sent her 
ironclads to prop up the tottering throne of the Turk- 
ish Assassin. In issuing this Peace Circular the Tsar 
is faithful to the best traditions of his fathers. 

Let us hope that this time at last he may find only 
a generous emulation and rivalry in good works on 
the part of the English people. The chances of the suc- 
cess of the Conference depend more upon the nature of 
the response in Britain than on any other considera- 
tion whatever. A vigorous national manifestation of 
Britain's determination to unite heartily with the Tsar 
in the war against war might mark the dawn of a new 
epoch in human history. If to the chivalrous and 
eloquent appeal of the young Autocrat of the East the 
free peoples of the West make only a halting and 
indifferent response, an opportunity will be lost the 
like of which we may never see again. But if, on the 
contrary, from the heart and conscience of great 
democracy, there should be heard a response over- 
whelming and universal, an alliance would be formed 
between the two greatest forces of our time — an alii- 



288 TEE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

ance based on the fraternity of the peoples and dedi- 
cated to a Holy War against the greatest evil of our 
time. 

The second letter was as follows: — 

AY hen I came to Russia I was told that this was the 
worst time in the year for finding anybody. I have, 
however, already seen almost everybody — except the 
Tsar — who counts for anything in Russia. Count 
MuraviefT, it is true, I have not seen. He is away in 
Western Europe. General Kouropatkin is also ab- 
sent. But, with the exception of these two, I think I 
can fairly say that I have seen everybody whose opin- 
ion counts for anything in the direction of Russia's 
policy. I have seen, for instance, Count LamsdorfT, 
of the Foreign Office, now, in the temporary absence 
of his chief, the apparent as well as the real mainspring 
of the office to which he has devoted for years the 
trained energies of his whole life. I have met on 
three occasions M. Witte, the Minister of Finance, the 
strongest, the most original, and the most successful of 
the Chancellors who have ever presided over the Rus- 
sian Exchequer. I have twice been received in the 
most friendly and hospitable fashion by M. Pobedo- 
nostseff, the famous Procurator of the Holy Synod, 
whose power is recognized the more by those who like 
it the least. Prince KhilkofT, the Minister of Ways 
and Communications, who is now pushing on the con- 
struction of the great Siberian Railway with some- 
thing of American energy, was not less kind and cour- 
teous or ready to reply to my inquiries. I also had an 





M. SERGIUS MITTE 
Minister of Finance 



PRINC E KO D R OPATKIN 

Minister of War 




M. GOREMYKIN 

Minister of the Interior 



PRINCE KIIILKOFF 

Minister of Railways 



LEADING RUSSIAN STATESMEN 



TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 289 

interesting conversation with M. de Martens, the fa- 
mous jurist who is to preside over the Venezuela arbi- 
tration, and who, from his frequent arbitrations, has 
come to be regarded as a kind of Deputy Lord Chief 
Justice of Christendom. I repeatedly saw M. Basili, 
the chief of the Asiatic Department of the Foreign 
Office, to whose charge the oversight of the Peace 
Conference is entrusted, and had long and interesting 
discussions both with him and his assistants. I spent 
a long afternoon in company with M. Jean de Block, 
the Warsaw banker. General Mossoulofr", Director 
of the Department of the Foreign Cultes, was another 
official whom I was glad to meet. 

!Not less interesting than these representatives of 
official Russia were the unofficial Russians, with whom 
I spent no little time in St. Petersburg. Chief among 
these were Prince Ukhtomsky, of the St. Petersburg 
Yiedemosti, a man reputed to be a veritable Anglo- 
phobe, but whom I found to be one with whose opin- 
ions I was in almost absolute accord. I had also a 
couple of long interviews with M. Rothstein, the 
Director of the Russo-Chinese Bank, the bete noire 
of English officialdom, but a man with whose views, 
especially on Chinese affairs, English men of business 
would find it extremely difficult not to sympathize. 
Besides these, I saw, of course, both the Ambassadors 
of the English-speaking nations, and any number of 
unofficial representatives both of Britain and the 
United States. Of press men and professors I saw 
not a few. Hence, when I left St. Petersburg I did 
19 



290 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

so with the happy consciousness that I had missed no- 
bod}' who was worth seeing, and that I had got down 
to the bedrock of the question which I had come to 
Russia to investigate. For be it noted that my visits 
to the Ministers and others named above were by no 
means mere calls of courtesy. I came on a mission 
of inquiry, and I interviewed every one " down to the 
ground." It is no small test of the urbanity and cour- 
tesy and hospitality of the Russians that they bore with 
my inquiries so patiently and entertained me with a 
cordiality and generosity that could hardly have been 
exceeded if I had been an accredited envoy from a 
friendly and allied state. 

The net result of the fortnight I spent in St. Peters- 
burg is to confirm in every way the convictions which 
I expressed in my last letter. Whatever else may be 
in doubt, one thing is no longer in doubt — namely, 
that Russia is now definitely, publicly, and solemnly 
committed to a policy of peace. The Tsar has gone 
into this Conference affair with hearty goodwill. He 
means business. And not only does he mean business, 
but his Ministers mean business also. I cannot speak 
for Count MuraviefL He has already spoken for him- 
self, and everybody says that he can be relied upon 
to do the will of the Tsar. But all the other Ministers 
are of one mind on the subject. Some, it is true, 
being old and having long since parted with the enthu- 
siasm of their youth, are dubious as to whether any 
other nation will follow the lead so chivalrously taken 
by Nicholas II. All of them, whether old or young, 



TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 291 

agree in asserting that the young Emperor has taken 
a lead which renders it practically impossible for 
Russia to embark upon an increased expenditure on 
armaments, and ties her hands behind her back so far 
as any aggressive action is concerned in any part of 
the world. 

It was not until the very last day of my stay in St. 
Petersburg, when I had long and important interviews 
at the Foreign Office and with M. Witte, that I fully 
realized the immense practical significance of the Re- 
script. It is the fashion to say, " It is very lofty, very 

noble, etc., etc. But " Always a " but." So 

far as the other nations are concerned, the Tsar's pro- 
posals may be accepted with as many buts as you 
please. But in Russia the Tsar's declarations have 
a force and a binding authority which does not depend 
upon the resolutions of any Conference. " The Tsar," 
said one of his Ministers, " must have been mad if he 
had publicly and solemnly affirmed his determination 
to abate the plague of armaments unless he himself 
intended to abide by his own declarations. His Re- 
script may bind no one else; it undoubtedly binds 
Russia. As the other Powers have none of them ex- 
pressed an opinion that the Tsar is mad, I suppose they 
accept his Rescript as the public promulgation in the 
most formal and solemn fashion possible of his own 
unalterable resolve to oppose to all policies of aggres- 
sion a policy of peace, and to endeavor more and more 
to divert to fruitful enterprises of peace the immense 
sums now spent on the army and the navy." 



292 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

I put to the Minister the frequently stated difficulty 
about the contrast between the £10,000,000 allocated 
for extra naval purposes in spring and the Peace Re- 
script of late midsummer. He replied at once: — 

" If the Peace Rescript had been issued seven 
months earlier we should have saved all these millions. 
We cannot get them back, but we shall now be deliv- 
ered from the fear of seeing other millions take the 
same road." 

M. Witte, as might be expected from the Sir M. 
Hicks-Beach of Russia, was most jubilant over the 
Peace Rescript. He explained to me with somewhat 
sonorous eloquence that the famous invitation to the 
Powers not merely made manifest and unmistakable 
the pacific resolution of the Tsar; it immensely re- 
lieved M. Witte himself. For it need not be stated 
that in Russia, as in other countries, the army and 
navy are veritable daughters of the horseleech, per- 
petually crying, "Give! Give!" The new quick- 
firing guns for the field artillery are to be put in hand 
without delay. Universal military service is to be 
enforced in Finland. The new ships ordered and now 
in course of construction have to be paid for. Alto- 
gether, the assault on the Treasury is not likely to be 
lacking in vigor and persistence. But M. Witte is no 
longer afraid. " Henceforth," he said, " if my col- 
leagues should clamor for more millions for the army 
and the navy I shall have no more trouble in rebutting 
their demands. I shall simply hold up the Emperor's 
Rescript, and they will not be able to say a word." 



TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 293 

" Yes/' somewhat lugubriously remarked a friend 
of mine in the Foreign Office, to whom I repeated this 
conversation, " that is just what we fear. We shall 
find the Rescript used to tie Russia's hands behind her 
back, and whenever we need money for a strategic rail- 
way or anything else, we shall be told by M. Witte 
that we cannot have it because the Tsar has issued the 
Rescript. It is a serious danger for us, no doubt, but 
we must just make the best of it." 

I mention this because it illustrates better than a 
hundred declarations the real practical value of the 
Russian Rescript as a pledge and guarantee of Russian 
policy. 

If the Rescript acts as an effectual check upon the 
spending departments of the army and navy, it is 
not less valuable as indicating the trend of Russia's 
policy — especially in the Far East. There are Rus- 
sians who believe that it is the manifest destiny of 
their race to rule the whole of Asia, just as there are 
many amongst us who publicly proclaim that it is the 
manifest destiny of the English-speaking race to domi- 
nate not one Continent, but the whole round world. 
But of aggressive designs against China on the part of 
any Russian official or unofficial I found none. The 
Russians indeed are more anxious than the British to 
resist any further encroachments upon the independ- 
ence and integrity of the Chinese Empire. They are 
going to leave the Chinese as much alone as possible. 
M. PavlofT will soon be cooling his heels in Korea. 
The new Russian Ambassador at Pekin is M. de Giers, 



294 THE US IT ED STATES OF EUROPE 

a man bearing a name which has long been a synonym 
for peace and good relations all round. Kussia will 
now go slow in China, and she will go all the slower 
becanses she realizes better than we do the penalty 
that is exacted when the pace is forced. I had an idea 
before I came here that Russians resented our sticking 
up our flagstaff over the unarmed, ungarrisoned posi- 
tion of Wei-Hai-Wei. I do not find this idea con- 
firmed. On the contrary, they seem to admit that we, 
like themselves, acted under the stress of dire neces- 
sity. With, perhaps, the doubtful exception of Count 
Mairavieff, of whom I cannot speak at first hand, there 
are only two opinions about the occupation of Port 
Arthur and Talienwan. One opinion is that Russia 
should not have occupied these ports on any considera- 
tion whatever. The other opinion is that it was a most 
regrettable necessity, which Russia could not escape 
when once Germany had given the signal for the parti- 
tion of China by the occupation of Kiao-Chau. Eo 
one, so far as I could ascertain, regarded the occupa- 
tion of Port Arthur and Talienwan as other than a 
misfortune for Russia. But while some thought it a 
less misfortune than the risk of the seizure of Port 
Arthur by England, a very strong section was willing 
to face that risk rather than take part in the partition 
of China. Of one thing I am quite certain, and that 
is that Russia would to-day be in military possession 
of the Port of Manchuria but for two things. The 
first and most important was the seizure of Kiao-Chau 
by Germany, which ought to have been forbidden; 



TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 295 

and secondly, the raving rant of our Jingo papers, 
which seem really to have convinced the Russians that, 
if they were not quick about it, England would snap 
up Port Arthur under their very nose. To prevent 
our seizing the place, and to establish a counterpoise 
to Kiao-Chau, they took Port Arthur. But they are 
by no means pleased about it. " Ach! " said a Rus- 
sian Minister to me, piously crossing himself as he 
spoke — " if it had not been for the German Emperor 
seizing Kiao-Chau, we should not to-day have had Port 
Arthur and Talienwan hung like a millstone round 
our necks. They are white elephants to us; we want 
no more of the breed.' 7 

People in England may believe that this is all put 
on for my benefit if they please. If they knew a little 
more of the dead set that was made against the seizure 
of the Manchurian ports, they would be less sceptical 
and more rational in their appreciation of their neigh- 
bor's policy. The Russian mood about Port Arthur 
is, I take it, almost exactly Lord Salisbury's mood 
about Wei-Hai-Wei. It was a mistake to take it, but 
it was perhaps a greater danger to leave it alone. But 
now that it is done, for heaven's sake make an end to 
the breaking of China, and do what we can to keep 
going the only Government which rules 400,000,000 
of human beings without an army and without a navy. 

Hence, from these and other indications of Russian 
policy, I am more than ever convinced that, so far as 
Russia is concerned, the barometer is set steady for 
peace. Certainly, I have found nowhere here, even 



296 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

among the most bitter assailants of the policy of the 
Government, the faintest echo of the nonsense so 
freely talked in England about the Circular being " a 
ruse or trick issued in order to conceal some deep-laid 
plan of the wily Muravieff." " The wily Muravieff " 
is hardly a description that would commend itself to 
his critics in St. Petersburg, who usually assail him 
for quite an opposite quality. But although Count 
Muravieff is Foreign Minister, the real direction of 
Kussia's policy lies in other hands than his. I repeat 
once more that the Tsar is in earnest about this mat- 
ter, and that it will not be his fault if the Conference 
is not crowned by signal success. 

When I left the city on October 17th nothing was 
decided as to the place or date of the assembly of the 
Conference. The suggestion that it should be held 
in Brussels may be regarded as disposed of by the fact 
that in the opinion of the King of the Belgians the 
proper place of meeting would be St. Petersburg, 
where the Conference would assemble under the eyes 
and under the direction of the noble and powerful 
sovereign who conceived the generous idea of sum- 
moning the Parliament of Peace. 



CHAPTEE IV 



M. WITTE A^D HIS WORK 



M. Serge Yulevich Witte (or Vitte, if you conform 
the orthography of the name to its proper pronuncia- 
tion) is one of the most remarkable Russians who has 
ever occupied his present important post of Minister 
of Finance and Trade, and by far the strongest of the 
ten holders of Ministerial portfolios who now govern 
Russia under the Tsar. Since Rentern — who was 
Minister in the " sixties/' and whose ultimate success 
in producing surpluses of revenue in the place of pre- 
vious deficits was nipped in the bud by the outbreak 
of the war against Turkey — no other Russian Minister 
of Finance has played such a conspicuous part in the 
affairs of State and accomplished so many important 
reforms in such a comparatively short space of time. 
It must be remembered, however, in estimating his 
achievements that the way had, to a great extent, been 
paved for him by his immediate predecessor M. Vish- 
negradsky, who was also a very able Minister of Fi- 
nance. It was, in fact, due to the patronage of Vish- 
negradsky that Witte emerged from the obscurity in 
which he began life as a minor railway employe at 
Odessa, and Vishnegradsky, on breaking down in 



298 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

health, proposed M. Witte as his successor to Alex- 
ander III. 

M. Witte, like Prince Khilkoff, the present Minister 
of Ways and Communications, is essentially a railway 
man ; and his ability in railway administration appears 
to have been his sole recommendation for the onerous 
task of directing the finances of the Empire. And to 
this circumstance must be attributed the enormous 
extension of Russia's railways during his term of office. 

Serge Yulevich Witte was born at Tinis, where his 
father was at the head of an Agricultural Department 
under the Imperial Lieutenant of the Caucasus. After 
graduating at the University of Odessa, Witte entered 
the service of the Southwestern Railways in that town, 
and gradually rose to be traffic manager. In 1878 
he was called to St. Petersburg, and took part in 
a special commission on railways, which led to his 
appointment as Director of a newly devised Railway 
Department. Finally, in 1892, he became Minister 
of Finance, after first acting for a few months as Min- 
ister of Ways and Communications. 

As a Minister, he was at once confronted with the 
opposition of the aristocratic and bureaucratic society 
of St. Petersburg, who looked at him askance as an 
upstart and an outsider. All the details of his private 
life were made the common gossip of the town ; anony- 
mous and secret pamphlets against him were published 
abroad and circulated in Russia by thousands; but, 
nothing daunted, Witte forged ahead and took the 
Jews into his confidence as indispensable auxiliaries. 



M. WITTE AND HIS WORK 299 

He said to Pobedonostseff, the powerful official head 
of the Kussian Church : — " You leave my Jews in 
peace, and I will not interfere with your priests." All 
the traits of his character, as well as personal appear- 
ance, indicate a strong, determined individual. He 
is a very tall, largely built man, with a ponderous, 
ungainly movement in walking, as if he suffered from 
gout, with no polish of manner, and a disdain for cere- 
mony and etiquette when he has any point to gain. 
All the clever politicians and journalists who can 
serve his purpose he attracts within the widely spread 
jurisdiction of his ever extending Ministry by tempt- 
ing offers of more lucrative employment; and if they 
turn against him he generally finds means to silence 
or crush them. When they take refuge abroad, like 
his deadly enemy M. Cyon, who has published an 
entire library of anti-Witte literature, he does not 
scruple to have them outlawed by order of the Tsar. 

His first work in preparation for the monetary re- 
form was to put down speculation in paper roubles 
between St. Petersburg and Berlin, and clear out the 
Augsean stable of the Russian Bourse. He prohibited 
the exportation of rouble notes; withdrew a large 
quantity of them from circulation ; limited their future 
issue by the State Bank on the security of bullion; 
fixed the rate of exchange in the proportions then pre- 
vailing on the market between gold and paper, 
whereby the value of the paper rouble became settled 
at 1 J roubles metallic, and finally reduced the standard 
silver rouble to a part of the fractional currency, and 



300 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

introduced a gold standard by minting a whole series 
of new gold coins interchangeable everywhere for 
paper on this basis. 

The critics who vainly imagined that they might 
some day get back all that their forefathers fifty years 
before had gradually lost, or fancied that they had lost, 
by the depreciation of the paper money, accused him 
of " devaluation " and repudiation, but Witte kept on 
his way without flinching. A money agent who was 
discovered to be sending false or alarming information 
abroad in cipher telegrams was promptly expelled the 
country. Witte's agents were everywhere in Russia 
and abroad. He endeavored to regulate the business 
on " 'Change " by compelling the sworn brokers to 
stand within chalk-marked squares drawn on the floor 
of the building; but everybody revolted at this absurd 
and ridiculous measure, and a special commission of 
Exchange reform was then appointed. The bank 
directors complained that they were no longer their 
own masters — Witte dictated to them how they should 
transact their business, and bullied them if they did 
not at once comply. One banking firm, suspected of 
speculating in grain, had their books suddenly over- 
hauled by a special commission sent by Witte, and 
their shares immediately fell in value. 

In spite of all this, it is now generally recognized 
that the results of this redoubtable Minister's work 
have so far proved highly beneficial to the country at 
large. It would fill a volume to describe all the meas- 
ures and reforms which he has had adopted. One of 



M. WITTE AND HIS WORK 301 

the most important has been the brilliant completion 
of the conversion of the State loans, the interest on 
which has thereby been reduced from 5 and 5 J per 
cent, to 44 and 4 per cent. It is true that in order to 
do this, and also to supply the wherewithal for the 
prodigious activity in railway construction, he has had 
to increase the national debt by hundreds of millions 
of borrowed money, but the excuse is that this is nearly 
all for productive objects which will return an equiva- 
lent and more in due course of time. The last, but 
not the least, of AYitte's great reforms is the introduc- 
tion of the State liquor monopoly. 

There is probably no idea more firmly fixed in the 
mind of most Englishmen than that the Russian people 
are as drunken as Russian diplomatists are tricky. I 
am not going to deny it. I think it is true. But that is 
because the statistical returns prove that the Russians 
drink much less spirits per head than the virtuous 
Scotch, and many other nations in Europe. Those 
who care to go into the subject, not of diplomacy, but 
of drunkenness, will find it carefully treated by Mr. 
Carnegie, the second secretary to our Embassy at St. 
Petersburg, in a report received as recently as last 
June. I believe that it can be proved that much of 
the disrepute of Russian diplomacy is due, not to the 
dishonesty of the diplomatists, but to the honest desire 
of the Russian Government to meet the wishes of its 
neighbors. In like manner Mr. Carnegie affirms that 
the bad reputation of the Russian peasants for drunk- 
enness is really due to their superior sobriety. It 



302 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

sounds like a paradox, but it is a simple truth. Mr. 
Carnegie says: — 

In Russia the average consumption of spirits was and still 
remains very much lower than in many other countries, and 
if drunkenness is more apparent than elsewhere it is be- 
cause the lower classes are unaccustomed to a regular 
usage of spirits, and are, therefore, more liable to succumb 
to the temptation to drink in excess when the occasion 
offers. — Dipl. and Cons. Reports No. 485, p. 5. 

There are few subjects more interesting to the 
traveller in Russia than to note the drastic fashion 
in which the Russian Government has dealt with the 
liquor trade. We pride ourselves upon our superior 
morality, but King Demos is powerless in the grasp 
of that greater than he — King Bung; whereas the 
Russian autocracy handles the elsewhere omnipotent 
liquor trade with unceremonious severity. It is 
enough to turn Sir Wilfrid Lawson green with envy. 
The United Kingdom Alliance would be delirious with 
delight if it could in a single English county achieve 
the results that the Russian Government has attained 
without fuss or fury in the shape of temperance 
legislation. 

In one half of European Russia all sale of spirits 
for consumption on the premises has been absolutely 
and ruthlessly suppressed. The only exceptions are 
the few high-class restaurants and buffets which prove 
the rule. If any one wants a glass of vodka, for in- 
stance, in St. Petersburg, he cannot procure it for love 
or money outside hotels, restaurants and railway buf- 



M. WITTE AND HIS WORK 303 

f ets, except in a sealed bottle, which he is not allowed 
to open on the premises. " No corkscrews are allowed 
in the shops, nor are the buyers allowed to open the 
bottles on the premises or while carrying them to their 
destination." To attempt to enforce such a draconian 
law in England would provoke a revolution. In Rus- 
sia there has not even been a protest. Nor is that all. 
At the same time that the Government interdicted 
corkscrews and prohibited all sale of spirits " to be 
drunk on the premises/' it cut down with unsparing 
hand the number of places licensed to sell strong drink 
even under these severe conditions. In St. Peters- 
burg at one fell blow 400 of the 650 traktirs or spirit 
shops lost their licenses. In place of 937 wine and 
spirit shops only 178 were allowed to continue in busi- 
ness, while 325 Government and private spirit shops 
but partially replaced the 759 others that had been 
closed. Mr. Carnegie estimates the number of per- 
sons who lost their livelihood by this sweeping reform 
at 10,000 in the capital alone. As for compensation 
for vested interests, read the following extract from a 
semi-official publication : — 

In Russia there can be no question of giving compensation 
to the evicted retailers of spirits. The license they were 
granted by which they were permitted to carry on their 
deplorable business has always been considered by the 
legislator, the administration, the public, and by themselves 
as a permission liable to be withdrawn without explanation 
or comment. — Dipl. and Cons. Reports No. 485, p. 9. 

If the United Kingdom Alliance does not elect Mr. 



304 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Witte president for life, gratitude must be extinct in 
the Local Option breast. 

Nor is it only the dealers in ardent spirits that have 
felt the knife of the reformer. Beer — tell it not in 
Burton and name it not in the streets of Milwaukee — 
has also suffered. The restrictions imposed on the 
sale of beer in St. Petersburg are said to have reduced 
the consumption by 30 per cent. On the principal 
holidays — and holidays are numerous in Russia — the 
drink-shops are shut up either altogether or for the 
greater part of the day. In the last thirty years the 
tax on spirits in England has remained practically 
stationary. In Russia it has been increased until it 
is two-and-a-half times more than it was in 1863. 

Even this was not all. The Government., not con- 
tent with persecuting the Trade in this high-handed 
fashion, confiscating licenses, destroying vested in- 
terests, and abolishing all sale for consumption on the 
premises, proceeded in still more insidious fashion to 
undermine the very ground upon which John Barley- 
corn was still permitted to stand. Side by side with 
the doomed traktir, the Government is endeavoring to 
establish tea shops, " intended to become harmless 
places of resort for the lower classes where they can 
meet without any temptation to intemperance." Tem- 
perance committees have been formed whose function 
it is to make tea-rooms as attractive as possible, and so 
to combat the temptation to drink vodka. When in 
England we see Government grants made for the 
establishment of coffee taverns, and when the Lord 



M. WITTE AND HIS WORK 305 

Lieutenant of the county is expected as a matter 
of course to act as president of the local temperance 
committee, we shall have come up to the Russian 
standard. 

Of course, those who would discover that the Arch- 
angel Gabriel was a disguised devil if they overheard 
him speaking Russian, are quite sure that all this tem- 
perance legislation is only a ruse of the wily Witte to 
fill his coffers. It is unfortunate for those suspicious 
critics who have substituted for the charity that think- 
eth no evil the hatred that thinketh no good thing- 
can come out of the Russian Nazareth, that so far as 
statistics prove anything, the revenue has suffered 
rather than gained by the change. It is too soon to 
come to a definite conclusion on the subject, but 
Mr. Carnegie thinks that the system by which the 
Russian Government makes the supply of spirits a 
monopoly of the state will ultimately both increase 
the revenue and " act at the same time as a check on 
intemperance/' 

Few things in St. Petersburg will more startle the 
untravelled Briton than the discovery that it is the 
temperance societies which have taken in hand the 
supply of popular recreation. Imagine Lincoln's Inn 
Fields handed over to a City Temperance Society for 
the purpose of making it available for the amusement 
of the crowded denizens of the back streets of Hol- 
born. Imagine, if you can, a spacious theatre erected 
in the centre of the square, and around it various 
booths, band-stands, and dancing floors, to all of which 
20 



30G THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

everyone is admitted on paying a few halfpence. 
Decorate the trees with festoons of colored lamps, 
brilliantly illuminate the whole area with electric 
light, and keep the fun of the fair going till mid- 
night. In the theatre perform Shakespeare's trage- 
dies and other dramas, classic and otherwise, twice 
or thrice a week, filling in the alternate nights with 
concerts and other entertainments. When you 
have done all that and more besides, you will only 
have reproduced in London what the St. Petersburg 
Temperance Society, under the presidency of Prince 
Oldenburg, has done and is doing every summer 
in the public squares and gardens of St. Petersburg. 
No doubt, as the Russian scoffer said : " God made 
the English and someone else the other people." But 
even the God-made race may here and there discover 
among " the other people " hints by which it might 
profit in the solution of the social problems of our 
time. 

A summary of Witte's work would not be complete 
without a reference to the commercial treaty with Ger- 
many in 1894, which he succeeded in compelling 
the Germans to make only after a fierce war of 
tariffs. Germany had never before been met with 
such a policy of retaliation on the part of a Russian 
Minister. 

M. Witte has not confined himself to Russian inter- 
nal affairs. His railway and financial schemes in Man- 
churia and Korea by means of the Russo-Chinese 
Bank, the now defunct Russo-Korean Bank, and the 



M. WITTE AND HIS WORK 307 

Eastern Chinese Railway Company, afford proof that 
he knows also how to conduct an insinuating foreign 
policy which must be far more effective in the end 
than such disturbing acts of violent aggression as the 
seizures of Kiao-Chau and Port Arthur, against which 
he was the first to protest. 



CHAPTEK V 



A RUSSIAN" COBDEN 



Soon after the Peace Rescript was issued, a story 
went the round of the press that it had its origin in 
a remarkable interview which had taken place between 

the young Emperor and M. B , who was described 

as a famous banker, a millionaire, and the author of 
a ponderous work on the future of war. The story, 
like most such stories, had a foundation of truth. M. 
Jean de Bloch, a banker and a political economist of 
Warsaw, who for the last seven years had devoted his 
life to the writing of a great book on the development 
of modern war and its influence on the nations, was 
received some time ago by the Tsar and afforded an 
opportunity of expounding his views at great length. 
Shortly after that interview the Rescript appeared. 
Post hoc is, however, by no means propter hoc. The 
famous Rescript had, as a matter of fact, quite another 
genesis — but into that I need not enter here. Suffice 
it to say that the interview did take place, and that M\ 
de Bloch found the Emperor keenly and sympathetic- 
ally interested in all that he had to say. 

It was not the first time M. de Bloch had enjoyed 
an opportunity of expounding his conclusions before 



A RUSSIAN COBDEN 309 

the ruler of Russia. He had been received by Alex- 
ander III. But the difference between the father 
and the son was most marked. Alexander III. lis- 
tened courteously, but made no remarks, while Nich- 
olas II. accompanied and interrupted M. de Bloch's 
discourse by perpetual questions and comments, which 
showed the keenness with which he followed the ex- 
position of the subject. A long discourse it was, two 
hours on end, and in the middle of it M. de Bloch 
grew weary, and had to halt for breath. But his Im- 
perial listener never wearied, and always seemed eager 
for more. Nor is this surprising. M. de Bloch is a 
most interesting man. He has got hold of a great 
idea, and he has quite exceptional gifts of exposition. 
He is of Jewish origin and was born in Poland, a Rus- 
sian subject. He has travelled much and far, and 
for the last seven years of his life has devoted his 
learned leisure and ample means to the production of 
his magnum opus, " The Future of War." 

I have called him the Russian Cobden, because he 
reminds me in many ways of that most famous of all 
the English economists who were also statesmen. He 
possesses an engaging exterior, a great persuasiveness, 
and he is absolutely dominated by his conception of 
the truth, which he devotes his life to study and to 
teach. M. de Bloch is not a Free Trader, although 
he is not a Protectionist of the ordinary type. His 
resemblance to Cobden does not lie in the particular 
economical doctrine he professes, so much as in the 
originality and simplicity of his mode of thought and 



310 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

his absolute certainty that he has struck the root of 
things. He is like Cobden in being an international 
man, in taking wide views of things, and yet in always 
standing four square upon the solid facts and material- 
ities of life. " Give me figures," he said to me; u let 
me see the facts; it is no use discussing abstractions; 
we should always see how they work out." 

What Free Trade was to Cobden, a conception of 
the approaching extinction of war is to M. de Bloch. 
Possibly the Warsaw banker may be as much mistaken 
as was the Corn Law repealer in anticipating the 
speedy triumph of his opinions. That is a matter 
which the future alone can reveal. But his great idea 
is that the immense progress in the deadliness of fire- 
arms and explosives which has been made in the last 
quarter of a century, together with what is practically 
the arming of the whole manhood of Europe, has 
brought us within close range of the time when war 
will become practically impossible. Lord Lytton pre- 
dicted the end of war by the discovery of Yril, that 
mysterious compound of lightning and dynamite by 
which a child could annihilate an entire army. M. 
de Bloch is much too staid and solid a' writer to dream 
of that which does not exist. He takes his stand upon 
the results already attained, and he maintains, with 
inexhaustible eloquence and a marvellous store of de- 
tailed information, that even now, little as the nations 
dream of it, war has become practically out of the 
question. And in his opinion the chief object of the 
Peace Conference ought to be the definite ascertain- 



A RUSSIAN COB DEN 311 

ing and certifying of the truth of this fact before the 
eyes of the whole world. 

" What people have not realized/' said M. de Bloch 
to me, " is that modern war is something altogether dif- 
ferent from all the wars that have ever been fought 
since the world began. If I were to prescribe the 
right way in which to educate a soldier to-day, I should 
begin by burning all military history before 1875. 
Nothing that happened before then affords any in- 
struction as to what will happen now. The long range, 
high velocity, and great accuracy of the modern weap- 
ons of destruction render the war of the future some- 
thing altogether different from the wars of the past, 
so that all conclusions based upon previous campaigns 
are at fault. High explosives, quick-firing guns, to 
say nothing of air ships and submarine boats, are rap- 
idly making war impossible. The carnage, especially 
of officers, will be such that even a successful war will 
destroy the social fabric and open wide the door to 
revolution, which will then triumph everywhere." 

" But," I asked, " are you sure of your facts? You 
are not a soldier, and how can you speak with authority 
on such a question? " 

" For my facts," he said, with pardonable pride, 
" you can seek in my book. There I have laid the 
foundation — as I believe, a foundation which no one 
can shake — of the faith that is within me. I am not 
a soldier, it is true, I am an economist. But the quali- 
ties which make the best soldier — the gift of leader- 
ship, personal prowess, great physical endurance, the 



312 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

talent to divine and anticipate an enemy's movements 
— these do not necessarily enable the soldier to discern 
the net result of modern inventions or their influence 
on the future of war. The student who avails himself 
of all existing materials furnished by military and 
other authorities need not necessarily be a soldier. In 
my book, which has already appeared in Russian, and 
will soon appear in German and in French, you will 
find the conclusions which I have stated based upon 
an incontrovertible array of statistics culled from the 
best authorities on the art of modern war." 

" How far lias that conviction of the suicidal deadli- 
ness of modern war spread throughout Europe? " I 
asked. 

" At present not far, because few comparatively are 
aware of the full consequences of recent changes. But 
in all armies, many of the more intelligent officers 
realize the fact that for them a declaration of war will 
be equivalent to a sentence of death. Among Ger- 
man officers especially I have found of late years a 
remarkable disappearance of all desire for war. There 
is no war party among German officers to-day, for they 
know that war for them would mean death. Again 
and again they have said to me : ' If war breaks out 
we shall, of course, go to the front. It is our duty. 
But none of us will come back.' And they are right. 
Sharpshooters with arms of precision of immense 
range will pick off the officers; nor will any tell-tale 
smoke betray the source of the sudden death." 

" But," I object, " such ideas have always prevailed 



A RUSSIAN COBDEN 313 

whenever any new deadly weapon was invented. 
Gunpowder superseded the bow and arrow, but it did 
not abolish war. Neither will high explosives." 

" By itself perhaps not/' replied M. de Bloch. " But 
it is not by itself. For the main contention of my book 
is twofold. First, that the conditions of modern war- 
fare as to implements of destruction are too deadly to 
permit of war without mortality before undreamed of; 
and secondly, that the disorganization of society which 
would be occasioned by the mobilization for war of 
the whole male population would produce results ut- 
terly destructive to the State. It is with the economic 
effects of war on the complex system of modern society 
that I am most interested. The subject has never 
been studied. But there lies the secret, the fatal 
secret which will render war impossible." 

" In what way? " I ask. 

" Modern society," he replied, " daily grows more 
and more complex, more and more delicate. The 
interdependence of the whole upon the proper func- 
tioning of each of its parts is every year becoming more 
palpable. This is no theory, nor does it concern itself 
with luxuries. It is the simple fact; the daily bread 
of each of us more and more depends upon the coordi- 
nation and cooperation of an immense multitude of 
agencies, most of which are international, but all of 
which would be readily thrown out of gear by a decla- 
ration of war. I do not hesitate to declare that the 
mobilization of the whole manhood of the nation for 
purposes of war would have on the body politic, on 



314 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

the social organism, very much what the sudden ex- 
traction of all the bones would have upon the body of 
a man." 

" But surely these things have been duly considered 
and prepared for? " I object. 

" ^Nothing of the kind/' he replied. " In England 
there have been one or two imaginative attempts to 
forecast the results that would follow the outbreak of 
war; for England, being the most artificial State in 
existence, and less self-dependent, is of all others that 
which would be soonest destroyed if by any means the 
regular functioning of her food supply were interfered 
with. But in other countries there has been no study 
of the economic results of war under modern condi- 
tions. In France some years ago, when M. de Frey- 
cinet was Prime Minister, M. Burdeau told me that 
a proposal was made to appoint a Committee of Econo- 
mists to report upon the economic results that would 
follow an outbreak of war. But the soldiers vetoed 
it. They do not wish to have the consequences of war 
brought home to the knowledge of the people. But 
that is what the Peace Conference ought to do." 

" In what way? " I ask. 

" It is not for me," said M. de Bloch, " to draw up 
the programme for the Congress, much less to pre- 
scribe its procedure or dictate its resolutions. But my 
idea of what might be done to the most advantage is, 
if the Congress after its first meeting were to appoint 
a committee or committees of the ablest of its mem- 
bers to conduct what would be an international inquiry 



A RUSSIAN COBDEN 315 

into the extent to which modern warfare, under the 
modern conditions of society, has practically become 
impossible without sacrifices of life hitherto unheard 
of on the battlefield, without total dislocation of the 
fabric of society, and without inevitable bankruptcy 
and revolution. That is the abyss towards which the 
nations are rapidly sliding. The Congress should en- 
deavor to open their eyes to envisage the situation as 
a whole, from the military, naval, and economic points 
of view. After the committees had completed their 
inquiry, the results could be reported to an adjourned 
meeting of the Congress, which would then busy it- 
self with providing some other method of adjudicating 
international disputes than that of war, which would 
then be perceived to have become absolutely im- 
possible." 

Such, in brief, are the ideas of this Russian Cobden. 
It is obvious that if he is right we are nearer the end 
of war than any of us ventured to suspect. The proofs 
of the impossibility of going to war on a great scale 
without practical suicide of the nation are, he main- 
tains, to be found in his great book, the six volumes 
of which lie before me as I write. As I have under- 
taken to have the gist of them published this spring in 
English, they will be generally accessible before the 
meeting of the Congress. But even if M. de Bloch 
is mistaken in the confidence which he reposes in what 
may be described as the self-destructive energies of 
modern war, he is not mistaken in the conviction that 
the miserably wretched condition of the masses of 



816 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

mankind renders the waste of resources in provision 
for homicides. It did one's heart good to hear M. de 
Bloch expatiate upon the immense possibilities that 
lay before the social reformer who had at his disposal 
even one-tenth of the sum now lavished on armaments, 
which, if he be correct, have now attained dimensions 
which render it impossible to use them. Mr. Cham- 
berlain in his early days, when he talked of ransom 
and shed tears over the wretched condition of the serfs 
of the soil, would have found himself in absolute ac- 
cord with this bold assailant of the bloated armaments 
of the modern world. Not even John Burns of Bat- 
tersea could have spoken with more passionate earnest- 
ness in describing the horrors of the extreme and 
squalid poverty which abounds beneath the gilded 
crust of our boasted civilization. I could have counted 
my visit to Russia well spent if only it had brought me 
into personal living relations with so remarkable a man 
as M. de Bloch. 

Of his book it is impossible to speak here, except in 
generalities. It is in six volumes, and is very copi- 
ously illustrated with all manner of diagrams, plans, 
and pictures. It is entitled in Russian, " The War of 
the Future in its Technical, Economic, and Political 
Relations." I have only been able to look through it 
enough to see that it would be impossible to give a 
detailed summary without reading it thoroughly, prob- 
ably more than once. As far as I can make out from 
the indexes, the first five volumes, including the sup- 
plement to the fourth, are statistical, analytical, and 



A RUSSIAN COB D EX 317 

descriptive, while the sixth is devoted to " General 
Conclusions/' which tend to show the potential dan- 
gers of future wars, and summarize the dangers which 
have occurred in the past. The sixth also treats of 
the religious, racial, and territorial " open questions " 
in Europe, and also in the Far East. This volume is 
the more important just at the present time, and its 
most important part in its turn is the final portion, 
" The Conclusion," which treats of possible causes of 
war, and illustrates their comparative triviality, advo- 
cates the constitution of an International Court, point- 
ing out that the present is the most convenient mo- 
ment, and insists on the necessity for investigating the 
conditions and consequences of war in a scientific man- 
ner. The immense ground covered by the work may 
be gathered from the fact that there is a list, twenty- 
six closely-printed pages long, of authorities from all 
languages, in all about a thousand authorities. 

The book seems to comprise everything directly 
or indirectly connected with warfare and its conse- 
quences. It treats the question at the same time in 
the broadest and the most detailed and technical man- 
ner. In fact, it resembles a cyclopaedia compiled upon 
a philosophical principle, for it coordinates all the in- 
formation it contains and brings them into a harmoni- 
ous system, and only differs from a cyclopaedia inso- 
much as its ultimate aim is polemical, though as far 
as bulk is concerned it is mainly statistical. There 
are nearly four thousand pages in the volumes. 

M. de Bloch told me that in the Trench and Ger- 



318 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

man editions he has changed the title. " When I went 
to look over the proofs at the printing establishment 
in Germany where the German edition is being 
printed, the foreman printer came to speak to me. It 
was just after the Tsar's Rescript had appeared. ' Sir/ 
he said, i do you not think that your book is now mis- 
named? You call it "Die Zukunft des Kriegs." ' 
' Why so ? ' I replied. i Because/ he said, ' after the 
Tsar's Rescript there should be no more wars. And 
if so, how can you speak of the Future of "War? ' I 
was so impressed by the man's remark that I call my 
book simply ' War ' — for war, I hope, has no more a 
future." 



CHAPTEK VI 

THE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 

Of Russian notables who are known beyond the con- 
fines of their own country the number are few. It 
is probable that there are not a dozen men in Russia 
whose names have even been heard by the majority 
of Englishmen and Frenchmen. But among this 
dozen there must be included Prince Ouchtomsky, 
who has a very definite, if not very conspicuous posi- 
tion. Prince Ouchtomsky is the author of the stately 
volumes in which are described the incidents of the 
tour of the present Emperor through Asia. Prince 
Ouchtomsky accompanied the Emperor on his journey 
as a kind of historian-in-waiting, and afterwards acted 
more or less as private secretary to the heir apparent 
during the latter half of his journey. Since his re- 
turn he has founded a newspaper in St. Petersburg, 
the St. Petersburg Viedemosti, which is honorably dis- 
tinguished in the Russian press for the independence 
with which it criticises public affairs. Prince Ouch- 
tomsky may be described as the Russian Wilfrid 
Blunt. He is a poet, like Mr. Blunt, and he is con- 
sumed by the same passionate devotion for the Chinese 
that Mr. Wilfrid Blunt displayed in the cause of the 



320 TEE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Egyptian Fellaheen. As Mr. Wilfrid Blunt was de- 
voted to Arabi, so Prince Oucktomsky pins his faith 
to Li Hung Chang. He was personally attached to 
Li Hung Chang during the latter's visit to Russia; 
and the reverent devotion which he displayed to the 
Chinese statesman is still the subject of laughing com- 
ment among his friends in St. Petersburg. Prince 
Ouchtomsky is a man of culture and of sincere political 
and religious convictions. He has travelled exten- 
sively in China, and has spent some time as an inmate 
of a Buddhist monastery, where he lived the better to 
imbibe the spirit of the people and familiarize himself 
with the Buddhist idea of life. He has one of the 
most remarkable collections of Buddhas in bronze and 
in silver that exists in Europe. He collected them 
with infinite pains from all parts of China and Thibet. 
He was not allowed publicly to exhibit his spoils in St. 
Petersburg, M. Pobedonostseff, it is said, believing 
that it would not befit an Orthodox Christian State to 
permit an exhibition of so many Buddhas under the 
shadow of its cathedral; so the hundreds of Buddhas 
remain in Prince Ouchtomsky's own house, standing 
in rows, like soldiers on parade. There are Buddhas 
of all sorts and sizes, every one in its own time the 
object of the reverence and devotion of numberless 
worshippers. As I sat in the midst of that great com- 
pany of images of him whom Asia adores, I could not 
resist a curious impression as to the influence of a 
shrine. The atmosphere was Asiatic, and not Euro- 
pean, and the room seemed to be peopled with the in- 



THE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 321 

numerable company of those who for many genera- 
tions past had bowed the knee in adoration before 
these solemn, silent images, which serve as keys to 
unlock the inner mystery of the physical consciousness 
of man. Prince Ouchtomsky has the reputation of 
being a terrible Anglophobe. He speaks English ex- 
tremely well; lie is very familiar with English litera- 
ture; he has an enfant terrible on his staff, Mr. 
Hallstrom, who frequently writes fearsome articles 
concerning the iniquities of England; but Prince 
Ouchtomsky, although an unsparing critic of what 
he considers the barbarity and ambition of Great 
Britain, has never abandoned himself to any of the 
excesses of Anglophobia. At the Foreign Office they 
regard him as, first and foremost, a Chinese, just as 
the people at our Foreign Office regarded Mr. Wilfrid 
Blunt as, first and foremost, an Egyptian; and he re- 
sents much more bitterly any attacks upon the inde- 
pendence of his beloved Chinese than all our offences, 
real or imaginary, against the Russian Emperor. But 
one great question which created some difference of 
late between Russia and England — the duty of pro- 
tecting the Armenians against their Turkish oppres- 
sors — found Prince Ouchtomsky in strong opposition 
to the policy of his own country. ~No one can speak 
more unhesitatingly as to the wickedness of Prince 
Lobanoff's policy. Prince Ouchtomsky is very much 
of Mr. Gladstone's opinion in that matter, and as he 
expressed his opinion freely in his newspaper, he may 
be regarded as a valuable witness for truth and liberty 
21 



322 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

in the very heart of the Russian Empire. He is also 
a strong advocate of religious toleration, and has set 
himself firmly against the persecuting policy which 
has so long been in favor in high quarters. All this 
tends to show that Prince Ouchtomsky deservedly 
holds a high place among the few independent indi- 
vidualities who, from force of character or from advan- 
tageous circumstances, have been able to make their 
identity felt and realized outside Russia. In China 
Prince Ouchtomsky is very popular, and was received 
at Pekin on a recent visit with honors greater than 
those which had been accorded to the Ambassador of 
any foreign Power. 

I made it my duty to make his acquaintance imme- 
diately on arriving at St. Petersburg. I was warned 
in advance that I should find him a virulent Anglo- 
phobe. I was glad to find that this reputation was 
undeserved. In his paper, the St. Petersburg Viede- 
mosti, there have appeared certain articles which 
have attacked England with considerable vehemence. 
These, however, do not emanate from his own pen, 
but are contributed, for the most part, by a very able 
but much afflicted journalist, who told me quite 
frankly, at the beginning of a three hours' interview, 
that he regarded it as his duty to correct the excessive 
charity and Christian forbearance of his countrymen 
by preaching, in season and out of season, the neces- 
sity of hating England, whose sentiments, as expressed 
by her newspapers and embodied in such acts as the 
seizing of Cyprus and the continued occupation of 



THE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 323 

Egypt, and the appointment of Lord Curzon as Vice- 
roy of India, indicated unmistakably her hostility to 
Russia. I had many opportunities of meeting Prince 
Ouchtomsky, and found him one of the most charm- 
ing, cultivated and sympathetic men that I have come 
across in my travels. Those Englishmen who know 
him more intimately than was possible to me with 
such short acquaintance, assure me that I am not mis- 
taken in believing him to be absolutely sincere, a man 
of high principles and noble aspirations, possibly too 
great an idealist for this present evil world, but never- 
theless one who brings to the responsible discharge of 
his journalistic duties the sincere desire to contend for 
liberty, progress and peace. At the Russian Foreign 
Office he is regarded with the same alarm and, shall 
we say, derision, with which Sir Wilfrid Blunt was 
regarded in Downing Street seventeen years ago. 
They consider him a somewhat light weight, and I 
was repeatedly assured that I had not to take him too 
seriously. Outside official circles there was, however, 
a general belief that Prince Ouchtomsky, by reason 
of his former intimate relations with the Emperor 
during his Asiatic tour, and the opportunity which he 
still possessed of printing whatever he pleased in the 
St. Petersburg Yiedemosti — a paper which every day 
comes before the eye of the Emperor — was a man to 
be reckoned with very seriously indeed. Whichever 
estimate we take of him, there is no doubt that the 
Emperor has a high regard for him; and although he 
may differ from his judgments, he recognizes his sin- 



324 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

cerity and ability, and certainly accords to him the 
liberty of criticism which other journalists in Russia 
have sighed for in vain. I had many long talks with 
him concerning subjects that were nearest to his heart, 
and I do not think I can do anything better in order 
to interpret Prince Ouchtomsky to the outside world 
than by reproducing here an article on " Our Crime 
Against China/' which I wrote in St. Petersburg as 
the result of a long conversation with him. Most of 
the article I submitted to him in manuscript, in order 
that he might correct or modify any sentences which 
might not have accurately expressed his opinions. He 
returned the manuscript, however, without alteration, 
expressing his entire concurrence in the views therein 
set forth. In that, of course, I alone am responsible, 
both for their form and for the suggestion with which 
it concludes as to the possibility of Prince Ouch- 
tomsky's playing an important and useful role as a 
European adviser to the mandarins of Pekim That 
suggestion, I know, has been received with horror in 
Russia by French officials who declare, I believe with 
reason, that Prince Ouchtomsky is much more Chinese 
than the Chinese, and that the European Powers 
would find it much more easy to deal with the man- 
darins direct than to approach them through such an 
unsympathetic intermediary as Prince Ouchtomsky. 
English foreign ministers would have said much the 
same, no doubt, if it had been proposed that Mr. Wil- 
frid Blunt should be recognized as a European adviser 
of Arabics cabinet. That suggestion, however, is a 





Abdullah Freres, Constantinople 

M. DE NELIDOFF 

Rome 



COUNT MUKAYIEFF 




P1UXCE OUKOSOFF M. ZINOVIEFF 

Paris Constantinople 

RUSSIA'S FOREIGN MINISTER AND SOME OF HER AMBASSADORS 



TEE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 325 

detail which stands distinctly apart from the opinions 
of Prince Ouchtoinsky, embodied more or less faith- 
fully in the following pages : — 

The spectacle presented by the European nations 
in China is not edifying; it may indeed be described 
as truly revolting and even terrible. For what is the 
meaning of this mustering of warships, this landing 
of soldiers in the Far East? Does it not proclaim as 
with a trumpet voice that the partition of China has 
begun? Where the carcase is, the vultures will be 
gathered together, and the aspect of the European 
Powers is vulturous indeed. The harpies of civiliza- 
tion — the exploiter, the concessionnaire, the stock- 
jobber and company promoter — are swarming like 
blow-flies around carrion, and behind them all are 
shaking the mailed fists of Germany, England, and 
Russia. It is an empire that is being cut and carved 
for the looters of the world. Years ago the English 
and French soldiers sacked and plundered the Summer 
Palace of the Chinese Emperor. To-day the white- 
skinned nations, panting to join in the commercial 
exploitation of the whole of China, thunder with iron 
hands at the gates of the empire. The catastrophe 
which statesmen have foreseen and shuddered at for 
two generations is being precipitated by the headlong 
rush of financiers and traders. Who can say what the 
end will be? 

To this method of opening markets at the cannon's 
mouth, and extorting commercial concessions by the 
menaces of Ambassadors, grave objection may be 



326 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

taken in any case on many grounds. But that which 
chiefly concerns us in the present crisis is the extra- 
ordinary peril which is heing heedlessly created hy 
applying these methods to China under the present 
circumstances. It was once regarded as an axiom of 
European statesmanship that the vast mass of homo- 
geneous humanity which inhabits China should be re- 
garded as a vast preserve in which no one should go 
poaching on his own account, that what one nation 
gained all the other nations should share, and that 
nothing should be asked from the rulers of China 
which it would be beyond their power to grant. In 
other words, the "White World was to treat the Yel- 
low World as if each was a great unit, and it was the 
recognized interest of one world to avoid the dis- 
integration of the other. This established tradition 
went by the board when the German Emperor seized 
Kiao-Chau. We are still too near the event ade- 
quately to realize the tremendous results which fol- 
lowed the success of that somewhat piratical venture. 
The seizure of Kiao-Chau advertised to the world that 
in China there Avas no longer a government capable 
of repelling invasion or of resisting spoliation by its 
neighbors. It was as if the Kaiser had placarded a 
huge " To be Let or Leased to the First Comer " over 
the whole map of China. The example was not lost. 
Russia — whose Siberian railway, as Mr. Balfour had 
publicly acknowledged two years ago, gave her a moral 
claim based on economic necessity for an ice-free out- 
let in the Yellow Sea — no longer dared to wait until 



TEE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 32? 

her engineers had brought the railway to the frontiers 
of Manchuria. If China was to be let or leased to 
the first comer, then Russia must make secure without 
hesitation the northern province through which her 
railway was to run. So Manchuria passed under Rus- 
sian domination. Port Arthur and Talienwan were 
leased and occupied, and the second step in the par- 
tition of China was taken precipitately under the in- 
fluence of the alarm created by the occupation of Kiao- 
Chau. Since then the work of demolishing the power 
and prestige of the Chinese State has gone merrily on, 
until at last we have detachments of German, Russian 
and English soldiers marching into the city of Pekin 
to supply a garrison, minute but significant, to the 
very capital itself. 

What is going to be the end of all this? It is a 
question which it is well worth asking, although it is 
not much thought of amid the eager rush of conces- 
sionnaires and the tramp of armed men. Is the great 
Yellow Reservoir of humanity at last about to be 
forced to burst its banks and overflow the world ? That 
is of course a possibility, regarded by General Gordon 
for instance, and by many of the shrewdest observers, 
as a probability of which it is surely well to take ac- 
count. It has hitherto hardly seemed to be an object 
devoutly to be desired by the White World, but it may 
be inevitable and in the order of the universe. But if 
the Yellow Man is to become no longer a fixed but a 
soluble element in this teacup of a world, are we quite 
so sure that the infusion of this new and immense 



328 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

ingredient will altogether improve the flavor of the 
beverage — that it is either wise or prudent to stir it 
about so vigorously with ambassadorial teaspoons? 
Above all — to change the figure — is it necessary to 
blast breaches in the banks of the Yellow Reservoir 
by all the explosives of modern armaments? If ever 
there were a situation in which experience and pru- 
dence combine to teach us to " go slow/' it is the posi- 
tion of China to-day. But that is not exactly the 
order of the day in Pekin Embassies. 

What is likely to follow the break up of the long 
sleep of the Far East? There have been numerous 
more or less fantastic descriptions of the Yellow Peril. 
We are all familiar enough with pictures of the Yellow 
Man with the White Money destroying Lancashire by 
Chinese competition, and ultimately installing himself 
as millionaire master of the castles and palaces of those 
splendid paupers, the aristocracy of Britain. Still 
more recently Mr. Sheil sketched in gore his vision of 
a myriad host of Yellow Men pouring forth bent on 
the extermination of the Whiteskin. But neither of 
these perils is that which immediately impends. One 
of these is more remote, the other is at our doors. The 
remote peril is that the White Man may perish from 
the planet by the superior vitality of the Yellow Man. 
The Chinese have no scruples about mixed marriages. 
There is less prejudice among white races against mar- 
riage with Yellow Men than that which undoubtedly 
exists against intermarriage with blacks. The Chi- 
nese, indeed, by some white women, appear to be pre- 



THE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 329 

ferred to men of their own race — for reasons chiefly 
physical. But it is stated by those who have watched 
the results of the cross between the yellow and the 
white, that in the children the white man disappears. 
The child of a Chinaman is always Chinese, no matter 
how white its mother may have been. The toughness 
and vigor, the virility and vitality of the Yellow Man 
overpower the weaker physique of the White Man in 
the offspring of a mixed marriage. In the Straits 
Settlements, where the Chinese marry with the Ma- 
lays, the children lose the Malay type of their mother, 
and are indistinguishable from pure Chinese. Even 
if this, which is attested by many observers, be some- 
what exaggerated, there is sufficient truth in it to give 
the Whiteskin pause when contemplating the diffusion 
of the Yellow Man. Unless we wish the whole world 
to become yellow, it may be worth while keeping the 
Yellow Man where he is. 

What may be the ultimate consequences of this 
blending of the races in which the yellow strain alone 
seems able to persist, it is easy to speculate but impos- 
sible to predict. What is likely to be the first conse- 
quences is not so difficult to foresee. The Russians 
will be the first European race to receive the yellow 
strain into its veins. The Russians assimilate with 
Asiatics more easily than any other Europeans. Their 
frontier marches with that of China for more than 
four thousand miles. They have a vast undeveloped 
country in Siberia, into which the Chinese will flow 
by millions. The Chinese are hard-working, econom- 



330 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

ical, and absolutely indifferent to politics. They will 
marry and settle and breed, and their offspring will 
carry the Chinese strain into the very heart of the 
Kussian nation. In many ways they will add to it 
elements of which it stands in some need. The ma- 
terialism of the Chinese would be a corrective of the 
somewhat dreary mysticism of the Russian, and his 
sobriety and thrift would not be an undesirable addi- 
tion to the moral and economic outfit of the moujik. 
It is therefore by no means improbable, even if the 
partition of China were stayed, that the opening up 
of Siberia by the railway, and the extent to which 
China has already been upset, Avill result in the conver- 
sion of the Russia as we know it to-day into a mixed 
Russo-Chinese Empire — the possible sceptre by which 
Asia may rule Europe, and avenge in the twenty-first 
century the humiliations which she has received from 
the White Man since the days of Clive and Hastings 
even until now. 

That, however, is remote. Of more immediate and 
pressing importance is the deliberate attempts which 
Christendom is making to inoculate the Yellow Race 
with the destructive virus of militarism. This is the 
real crime against China — and against ourselves — 
which we seem to be preparing in the Far East. What 
irony of coincidence ! The Tsar summons all nations 
to a great Parliament of Peace, declaring that " to put 
an end to these incessant armaments, and to seek the 
means of warding off the calamities which are threat- 
ening the whole world, such is the supreme duty which 



THE IDEAS OF PRINCE 0UCHT0M8KY 331 

is to-day imposed on all States." And at the same 
time, by way of a practical illustration of the earnest- 
ness with which the Christian nations believe the 
maxims of the Prince of Peace and follow the counsels 
of the Emperor, they are busily engaged in preparing 
to inflict upon China the very curse from which they 
pray to be freed in Europe. What a spectacle for the 
mocking gods is this contrast between precept in 
Europe and practice in Asia! 

There are at this moment about as many millions of 
Yellow Men in the world as of White Men. There 
are many differences between the two races besides 
that of the color of their skins. The chief difference 
between the Yellow mass of humanity and the White 
is that the former is disarmed and the latter is armed. 
China is not an armed State. It is rather a flock of 
helpless sheep penned within the ancient walls of the 
Eastern sheepfold, without ironclads, without Max- 
ims, without any of the armaments of the Western 
world. The Chinese is the Empire of Peace. The 
Yellow Man is the only denizen of this planet who 
genuinely dislikes and despises the art of war. The 
White Man, whatever religion he may profess, is au 
fond a fighting man. " 'Daten! 'Daten! " is the uni- 
versal cry of the White-skinned child, though in the 
case of the Quakers the military instinct is sometimes 
exorcised. There is no White-skinned race that is or- 
ganized on a basis as strictly pacific as is that of China. 
By the Chinese the soldier is regarded with something 
of the contempt felt only for the slave in the White 



332 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

World. For a time this was concealed by the chevaux 
de frise of modern Enropean-bnilt ironclads and can- 
non by which the Chinese masked their real sheep-like 
character. It was assumed that they could fight. It 
is now known that they cannot fight, and would not 
if they could. The Yellow World is disarmed. And 
so the White World, with loud praises of disarmament 
on its lips, promptly proceeds to eat it up. Not very 
encouraging this for the war against war and the 
crusade against armaments. 

For a couple of years past the bubonic plague has 
been raging in Bombay. It is said that the virus of 
the pestilence was conveyed to the Indian seaport by 
a cargo of rice carried in the hold of a vessel which 
had previously been loaded with dead Chinamen. It 
is a gruesome illustration of how contagion spreads 
from land to land. But the prospect before us in 
China far exceeds in horror the results which followed 
the inoculation of Bombay with the virus of the bu- 
bonic plague. For what we are apparently now about 
to witness is a horrible and hideous inoculation of the 
whole Yellow Race with the deadly virus of that very 
militarism from which the Tsar has just exhorted us 
all to try to escape. The Yellow World, being on the 
whole healthy and sane, has hitherto contrived to live 
and thrive without subjecting itself to the ruinous 
burden of modern armaments or the blood-tax of uni- 
versal military service. Not even the attempt, per- 
sisted in for thirty years, to inoculate the Chinese with 
military passion by providing them with ironclads and 



THE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 333 

field-guns succeeded in infecting the character of the 
population. It remains inveterately peaceful, with 
no warlike ambitions which could not find ample satis- 
faction in the painting of a dragon's head upon a paste- 
board shield. So now, finding all other means to fail, 
the European Powers are beginning to lay violent 
hands upon the pacific Yellow Man, and by sheer force 
are about to compel him to become a soldier in spite 
of himself. 

The Germans will drill and discipline into fighting 
men the peaceful peasants of Shantung. The English 
in Wei-IJai-Wei, if ever they do anything in that un- 
fortunate station, will also drill and discipline and 
teach the Yellow Men to love war and eschew peace — 
even as do the Christian White Men who are taking 
them in hand. So also in their turn will the Russians 
pass the Manchurians through the military mill. And 
thus it will come to pass that the most pacific race on 
earth will be trained like fighting-cocks by their White 
masters, in order that they may shed their blood like 
warriors in the cockpit of the Middle Kingdom. The 
partition of China means the compulsory training of 
hundreds of thousands of Chinamen in warfare, the 
grafting of a military habit upon the inveterately 
pacific and laborious population of the Middle King- 
dom. 

The partition of China, begun by the seizure of 
Kiao-Chau, under the more or less hypocritical plea 
that such reparation was due for the murder of two 
missionaries, will be followed by the arming of China. 



334 THE EXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

The drill sergeant, who in Egypt has " made a black 
man white, and made a mummy fight/' will find less 
difficulty in China. Xor need he fear that he will not 
find enough work for his recruits. In China at pres- 
ent, indeed, from the Russian frontier on the north 
to the borders of Burma and Siam on the south, 
there reigns unbroken peace. The Government at 
Pekin may be corrupt. Mandarins here and there 
may be restless and ambitious. But the Chinese main- 
tain peace among one-third of the inhabitants of the 
world with a less effective military force than that 
which answers for law and order in the little island 
of Ireland. But once the principle of splitterang is 
introduced — once the unity of the Chinese Empire is 
shattered as it is being shattered to-day — and who can 
estimate the number of armed men it will be necessary 
to maintain along the frontiers of the Erench and 
German, Russian and English States? To maintain 
that unity, to check, or at least postpone, the tendency 
to artificially hew it into hostile prtectorates, is surely 
the supreme duty of all Christian States. 

In India the case is altogether different. In that 
great peninsula the English did not find at their advent 
that the land was slumbering in the peace which broods 
over the Yellow AVorld. The Bengalee may be as 
pacific as John Chinaman, but the whole land was 
filled with fighting men. Eierce marauders from the 
hills and the soldiers of standing armies abounded 
on every side. There was anarchy, there was war. 
Everywhere were armaments, public and private. By 



THE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 335 

our conquest Ave ended all that. We maintain an 
army in India of 74,000 whites and 145,000 natives 
— a mere police force among 200,000,000 of human 
beings. This is possible only because there is unity 
of authority. Had we not driven the French out of 
Hindustan the standing army of India would have had 
to be multiplied many times. Unity of administration, 
the absence of all rivals within the Empire, renders 
possible the reduction of our armament to a minimum. 
The Empire of India is therefore an Empire of Dis- 
armament, and its existence enormously diminishes 
the number of men who would otherwise spend their 
lives in the practice of preparation for homicide. If, 
however, the European Powers partition China, ex- 
actly the reverse will take place. Upon an Empire of 
Peace will be superimposed a congeries of Protector- 
ates of War. There will be no unity of administration. 
There will be constant rivalry. And the result will 
be that, after China has been converted from a scene 
of peaceful industry into a vast barracks, it will some 
day be a very Aceldama in which the rival passions of 
European nations will slake themselves in the blood 
of the unfortunate Chinese, whom, in the name of 
Christian civilization, they have manufactured into 
efficient fighting men. 

'Now the supreme question for us all to ask is 
whether anything can be done to avert so appalling 
a catastrophe, which affords so cynical a comment 
upon our professions? Substitute for slavery mili- 
tarism, and we may quote Lowell's verse without the 



336 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

alteration of a syllable as an appeal to White Men in 
view of the disaster which they are preparing to inflict 
upon their Yellow brethren: — 

Slavery the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood, 
Sons of brutish force and darkness who have drenched the 

earth with blood, 
Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day, 
Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey. 
Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children 

play? 

Whatever else is done or left undone in China, the 
infliction upon the Yellow World of the burden which 
Ave find almost insupportable by the whites would be 
a superfluity of naughtiness for which there is no 
excuse. 

To avoid the perpetration of so vast a crime affect- 
ing, not a single state, but one-third of the human 
race, it is absolutely necessary to modify the policy 
which has hitherto been pursued in China. It is not 
necessary to indulge in any fantastic dreams about a 
regenerated China. Neither is it altogether pleasant 
to remember what regeneration has meant in the case 
of another yellow race. The Japanese have adopted 
European civilization, with the result that they have 
been already almost ruined by the immense arma- 
ments with which they have hastened to equip them- 
selves. There is no part of European civilization 
which is so easily assumed as that which takes the shape 
of Maxims and ironclads. Militarism is the alcoholism 
of nations, and Japan is the drunken helot of the East. 
She is mortgaging her resources and taxing her people 



TEE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCETOMSEY 337 

to the bone in order to create a gigantic fleet which, 
when created, will be impotent to realize her ambi- 
tions. But although we may not believe that if the 
Chinese Emperor had not been summarily put in the 
corner by the Dowager Empress, the Chinese Empire 
would suddenly have renewed its youth, there is still 
no necessity to assume that we shall wake up some fine 
morning and find that the Chinese Government has 
vanished into space. I have often quoted, and I will 
quote again, the excellent saying quoted by Mr. Nas- 
sau Senior as to the folly of supposing that empires 
which have lasted for many centuries are about to dis- 
appear because for the moment they seem to be in 
extremis. 

" Old empires," said the statesman to whom Mr. 
Senior was talking, " are like the country carts which 
you meet on a difficult bit of road in remote districts. 
Their wooden, ungreased wheels creak and groan, 
there is enough evidence of stress and strain and noise 
to make you think that the whole thing will next mo- 
ment go to pieces. But next day you find the same 
cart apparently none the worse going its rounds. So 
it is with these old empires. They seem to be going 
to pieces, but they will outlast our time." 

It was a word of sound wisdom. Uttered originally 
about the Turkish power, it applies still more forcibly 
to the Chinese Empire. It may seem to-day to be in 
articulo mortis; but we may depend upon it that long- 
after all of us are dead and buried there will be a Chi- 
nese Government of some kind or other controlling 
22 



338 TEE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

the affairs of the Yellow World. That is, of course, 
if it is not violently put hors de combat by an attack 
from without. Hence, however weak, however cor- 
rupt, however miserable the Chinese Government may 
be, we have got to reckon with it — to get on with it, 
and, in short, to make the most of it and the best of it, 
instead of making the worst of it. Unfortunately, for 
some years past the Ambassadors of the Powers at 
Pekin appear to have been doing their level best to 
make the worst of it, to weaken and destroy the pres- 
tige of the central power, with the result that the one 
agency from which any help can be obtained in over- 
coming the forces and prejudice of fanaticism and of 
savagery is at present in a fair way to be rendered 
utterly useless. 

The Government of a state, it has been well said, 
is like the heart in a human body. Upon its regular 
action depends the life of the whole community. 
When the heart is weak the circulation is affected, 
especially at the extremities. That is the case with 
the Chinese Government. It is weak, and its weak- 
ness is felt in every province. But notwithstanding 
its weakness it is the only element of moral strength in 
the whole Empire. When the railways, for construct- 
ing which concessions are being so eagerly sought, 
come to be built in reality across Chinese territory, the 
very men who are now abusing and denouncing the 
Tsung-li-Yamen will be the very first to appeal to them 
for assistance! Why then, in the name of common 
sense, should we allow our Ambassadors to bully and 



THE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 339 

browbeat the unfortunate mandarins as they have been 
doing lately? Granting everything that can be said 
as to the corruption, the duplicity, the general God- 
forsakenness of the Tsung-li-Yamen, what good has 
come of all the hectoring and storming of the Mac- 
Donalds and PavlofTs and Hey kings? It is not as if 
the Chinese Government, like that of the Sultan, had 
any strength in it. It has not, and it knows it has not. 
Any of the great Powers has only to ask and to have 
if it chooses, — no, not merely to ask, but to demand. 
The Tsung-li-Yamen is helpless, and it knows it. 
China is no longer an armed state. It is disarmed and 
powerless. As a British journalist remarked to me 
the other day, who had himself ridden across Mongolia, 
one thousand armed men could ride easily through the 
whole Empire. Nevertheless, this powerless, derided, 
browbeaten Tsung-li-Yamen have lost none of its pres- 
tige in the interior of the country. The dim myriad 
millions of Yellow Men know nothing of the extra- 
ordinary antics of the Foreign Devils at Pekin. Here 
and there a Viceroy of a province may have his eyes 
open to what is going on, and in that way civil war 
may arise. But the Pekin Government is still the only 
power with any moral authority that is felt throughout 
the Chinese Empire. Why should we not recognize 
this fact, and instead of endeavoring to revolutionize 
it by the aid of Kang-yu-Wei or browbeating it by Sir 
Claude MacDonald and his marines, — why should we 
not endeavor in real earnest to make friends with the 
Chinese, to work with them instead of working against 



340 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

them, and in short to do whatever good feeling and 
common sense can suggest for averting the break-up 
and partition of the Chinese State ? 

The best solution of the difficulty presented by the 
continually increasing pressure of the outside world 
upon the ancient Chinese social order would be arrived 
at if the Dowager Empress and the Powers could agree 
upon appointing a trustworthy white man as the For- 
eign Secretary of the Chinese Empire, through whom 
all negotiations should proceed in all matters relating 
to foreigners. If, for example, Sir Robert Hart had 
been a younger man, what could be desired more than 
that he should have been transferred from the Chinese 
Customs to the Chinese Foreign Office, and given the 
full Imperial authority to hold the balance even among 
the crowds of rival contestants for concessions, leases, 
etc.? If there were a Russian Sir Robert Hart, 
Britain might be well content to see him in such an 
office. For things have reached such a pass in the 
Tsung-li-Yamen that there is no centre of resistance 
to any demand, no matter how monstrous it may be, 
if only it be pressed with sufficient force by any of the 
great Powers. And it would be better for the whites to 
have to deal with any man of their own skin, no matter 
what nationality he was, so long as he was admittedly 
just and honest, than to deal with a group of cowering 
yellow men who do not understand half that is said to 
them, who of necessity lie all round, and who yield 
like a swinging door to every thrust from the outside. 

Unfortunately, this suggestion of a White Foreign 



TEE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCETOMSKY 341 

Secretary for China, approved by all the Powers and 
nominated by the Dowager Empress, on condition that 
he managed all the affairs of the Foreign Devils and 
left the Chinese absolutely free to govern themselves 
as they pleased, is a counsel of perfection. The Pow- 
ers would never agree. The Dowager would never 
appoint. It would also be difficult, when the three 
thousand miles of railway begin to be laid and £28,- 
000,000 of foreign capital is invested in Chinese lines, 
rigidly to separate foreign and domestic politics in 
China. This being so, some other solution must be 
sought. 

The importance of preventing the break up of 
China is equally obvious to Russia as to ourselves, and 
the problem may find a readier response at St. Peters- 
burg than in London. The Russians have gazetted 
M. PavlofT to Korea. His successor, M. de Giers, will 
have orders to go slow. Li Hung Chang, although 
nominally out of office, is still the power behind the 
throne. The Dowager Empress, it is evident, is no 
mere puppet, like the mandarins of the Tsung-li- 
Yamen, to be bullied with impunity. A great oppor- 
tunity lies open to the Power which will first and with 
frank sincerity proclaim itself the protector of the 
Chinese against further aggression. There would be 
no need of any formal treaty or any alliance. All 
that would be necessary would be for the foreign 
Power, whichever it may be, to declare its determina- 
tion to oppose all demands on China which it con- 
sidered unjust, and to exercise the task of adjudicating 



342 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

upon the justice of such demands with impartiality 
and intelligence. Such a Minister at Pekin would 
soon acquire the ascendency of the Great Eltchi at 
Constantinople before the Crimean War. If, for in- 
stance, an Ambassador personally sympathetic with 
the Chinese were sent to replace Sir C. MacDonald 
at Pekin, and if he were to make it the avowed prin- 
ciple of his policy to support the Dowager Empress in 
opposing every demand which a competent expert, say 
a man like Sir Robert Hart, were to declare to be pre- 
judicial to the integrity and independence of the Chi- 
nese Empire, how long would it be before the Chinese 
mandarins would huddle beneath our protecting wings 
as chickens flock to the hen when the shadow of the 
hawk crosses the yard? 

These considerations are equally obvious to the Rus- 
sian Government, which may easily forestall us in 
their application. Russia has no eager concession- 
naires pounding away in newspapers and in Parlia- 
ment to assail her Foreign Minister if he does not use 
ironclads to extort concessions. Russia has already 
nominated her new Minister at Pekin. Li Hung 
Chang is by no means indisposed to welcome from 
Russia more sympathetic treatment than he has re- 
ceived from M. PavlofL And if the Tsar should de- 
cide upon assuming the role of friendly protector of 
the Chinese Government, he has in Prince Ouch- 
tomsky an admirable agent, who, as unofficial Euro- 
pean adviser to Li Hung Chang, would soon bring 
about the Russo-Chinese entente. 



THE IDEAS OF PRINCE 0UCHT0M8KY 343 

When we read the following passage from Prince 
Ouchtomsky's book describing the Eastern tour of the 
present Emperor we seem to hear the voice of Mr. 
Blunt — with a Chinese accent: — 

China, so far as work and patience are concerned, is a 
uniquely great nation. It has produced a Confucius and 
numbers a thinker like Lao-tse amongst the ranks of its 
philosophers. It is a State which has elevated to the high- 
est point of perfection and simplicity both the cult of the 
monarchic principle and the reverence for those ancestors 
declared by the nation to be worthy of immortality. This 
country is our best neighbor, and the neighbor most like 
ourselves because of its conservative inclinations and 
qualities. 

Every Russian knows that a handful of soldiers from our 
army would suffice to reduce to subjection the whole of 
China. But if we did so it would perhaps result in Russia's 
comparative youth and energy, her ideals and creative rest- 
lessness, slowly withering away. But still more harmful 
would it be to give the Western nations absolute control 
over China in her for the present helpless condition. 

He is objected to at the Russian Foreign Office as 
being " too Chinese for anything." He is a personal 
friend of Li Hung Chang, and, as he is profoundly 
impressed by the perils of breaking up the Chinese 
Empire, he would work hand and glove with the Chi- 
nese Government in maintaining the status quo. 

However that may be, the Chinese problem remains 
before us, fraught with immense possibilities for evil 
to mankind. The one solution that seems absolutely 
the worst is its partition into an anarchic congeries of 
armed states under the guidance of rival European 



344 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Powers. The one thing to be aimed at is the main- 
tenance of the unity which enables one-third of the 
human race to live and labor in peace without the aid 
of Maxims and ironclads. Rather than sacrifice that 
unity, I for my part would welcome a protectorate of 
China by any one European power, subject to three 
conditions — free trade, free religion and no arma- 
ments. As the status quo gives us all three, is it 
not worth while making an effort to prevent its 
destruction? 



CHAPTEK VII 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 



Nicholas II., the Tsar of Russia, who to-day is what 
the Americans would call the " banner-bearer in the 
cause of Peace/ 7 is a soldier, a Colonel in the Russian 
army, and the honorary Colonel of a regiment in the 
English army. He is the first Russian Sovereign who 
has received an honorary command in the British 
army, and his appointment was due to the direct per- 
sonal initiative of Her Majesty the Queen. Sir Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman was in those days Secretary of 
War, when his Royal mistress intimated that her fa- 
vorite grandson must have an honorary command in 
the army of the Queen. Sir Henry Campbell-Ban- 
nerman is a practical man, and the canny Scot saw 
no end of difficulties in the way of such a departure 
from precedent. He pointed out to the Queen that 
it would be easy to make the Tsar an honorary Colonel 
in the army, but that would only be the beginning 
of trouble. All the other crowned heads would con- 
sider themselves slighted unless they were equally pro- 
moted to honorary colonelcies. Therefore, he said, it 
was quite impossible. The Queen listened to his ex- 
postulations, and said : " It may be impossible, but it 



34G THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

will have to be done all the same " — and done it was. 
But it was the opening of the door, for the next year 
the Emperor of Austria received a similar distinction. 
The Emperor is also an officer in his own navy, and 
usually wears uniform. 

The first time I saw him he was in military uniform, 
and the second time in naval, for it was the day on 
which he was about to start for Sebastopol to review 
the fleet. He entered the army when he was eighteen, 
and made himself an efficient officer, although he 
never displayed any passion for soldiering. Consider- 
ing the way in which he was brought up by his father, 
it was not likely that he would develop any. Alex- 
ander III. had made one campaign before he came to 
the throne, and the impression left upon him of the 
miseries and brutalities which follow inevitably in the 
train even of a liberating war made him determined 
that, come what might, during his reign Russia should 
sleep in peace. The late Tsar was never so happy as 
when he was disporting himself with his children, far 
from the cares of state. At these times he was ever 
wont to impress upon the young folks his horror and 
detestation of war. He would tell them anecdotes of 
what he had seen when in Bulgaria, and always with 
the same object. His mind was filled with the seamy 
side of campaigning; the pride, pomp, and circum- 
stance of " glorious war " had no fascinations for him. 
He had seen his soldiers perish in the winter snows of 
the Balkans; he had witnessed all the squalid reality 
of the campaign in Bulgaria, and his anecdotes always 




THE TSARINA 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 347 

pointed the same moral, viz., that war was dreadful, 
horrible, and inhuman. " May God keep you," he 
used to add with great earnestness, " from ever seeing 
it, or from ever drawing a sword." 

Nicholas II., the Emperor of Peace, is the son of 
Alexander III., the Peace-giver of Europe. Alex- 
ander III. was the son of Nicholas I., who was recog- 
nized for many years as the Chief Justice of the Con- 
tinent, and he succeeded Alexander I., a man who, 
although best known in this country as the head of the 
Continental Alliance which enabled us to triumph in 
the long death-struggle with Napoleon, was in his lat- 
ter years passionately devoted to peace. It was in 
order to establish European Peace upon a firm foun- 
dation of Christian principle that he joined with the 
King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria in pro- 
claiming the Holy Alliance, one of the first attempts 
which was ever deliberately made by three great Euro- 
pean Sovereigns to establish the tranquillity of Europe 
upon the basis of the Gospel. Their method may have 
been mistaken, and they may have done more harm 
than good, but no one can doubt the sincerity of the 
Emperor Alexander and his passionate desire to make 
an end of war. He had seen his capital ablaze, and 
he had led his victorious troops in triumph into the 
capital of France; but when he left Paris after peace 
was made he was dominated by the same intense loath- 
ing of war which reappeared in Alexander III. Those 
who are interested in the subject will find the story 
of the Holy Alliance told truthfully and sympatheti- 



348 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

cally in " The Life and Letters of Madame de Kru- 
dener." Five years later a worthy Quaker, Stephen 
Grellet, visited St. Petersburg, and received from 
Alexander a warm and sympathetic welcome. The 
Emperor told the good Friend how, when he was quite 
a boy, Prince Alexander Galitzin had given him a 
Bible, and recommended him to read it. He devoured 
it eagerly, and laid the foundation of a character to 
which, after many backslidings and many failures, 
Madame de Krudener was able to appeal with tri- 
umphant success in her evangelistic mission. Grellet 
reports that he talked long and much with the Em- 
peror upon religious matters; and then occurs a very 
remarkable passage which is well worth recalling at 
the present time: — 

We entered pretty fully into the nature of the peaceable 
kingdom of Christ, and to what the spirit of the dear Re- 
deemer, who is love, would lead all who are obedient to its 
dictates, on which he stated how great his soul's desire 
and travail had been that wars and bloodshed might cease 
for ever from the earth; that he had passed sleepless nights 
on account of it, deeply deploring the woes and misery 
brought on humanity by war; and that whilst his mind was 
bowed before the Lord in prayer the plan of all the crowned 
heads joining in the conclusion to submit to arbitration 
whatever differences might arise among them, instead of 
resorting to the sword, had presented itself to his mind in 
such a manner that he rose from bed and wrote what he 
then so sensibly felt — that his intentions had been misunder- 
stood or misrepresented by some, but that love to God and 
man was his only motive in the Divine sight. He was in 
Paris at the time he formed that plan. 

The writing to which the Emperor referred was un- 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 349 

doubtedly the famous proclamation of the Holy Alli- 
ance. " The fundamental thought of the Emperor 
Alexander/' says " Clarence Ford," Madame de Kru- 
dener's biographer, " was the foundation of an inter- 
national law founded on Christianity, which should 
unite on a single broad basis all the Churches of 
Europe, Catholic and Orthodox, Protestant and Angli- 
can. This, the Tsar believed, would lay the founda- 
tion-stone of that era of universal peace which it had 
been his life-long dream to establish throughout 
Europe." Laharpe, his old tutor, who had little sym- 
pathy with the Evangelical enthusiasm of the Tsar's 
later years, wrote : " Although intrepid in the midst 
of danger, Alexander held war in abhorrence. Eully 
realizing the abuses which excited the discontent of 
nations, he hoped that in the course of the long peace 
European Governments, recognizing the necessity of 
undertaking reforms demanded by the requirements 
of the century, would seriously set themselves to the 
task. To attain this object a profound tranquillity 
was necessary." It is worth while recalling these facts 
to show that Nicholas II. is in the true line of succes- 
sion, and that in his latest Rescript he is but reverting 
to principles which were affirmed by his predecessor, 
Alexander I., at the very moment when the crowning 
victory had been achieved which gave Russia the same 
preeminence on the Continent that Great Britain had 
on the sea. 

The Tsar is said to have declared that he hoped he 
would not only be Nicholas II., but the second Mch- 



350 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

olas, for the memory of the Tsar against whom our 
fathers warred in the Crimea and the Baltic is held in 
high regard by patriotic Knssians. There is, however, 
not much of the element that made Mcholas disliked 
outside Russia in his young namesake. It is probable 
that he takes more after his grandfather Alexander 
II. , whose ideas he has inherited, and to whose memory 
he has just unveiled the imposing monument which 
has been reared in the Kremlin. Alexander II. was 
a man who concealed a great tenacity of purpose under 
an appearance that did not exactly give the idea of 
strength. In some respects he was weak, but in rela- 
tion to the main purpose and the chief work of his 
reign — the emancipation of the serfs — his constancy 
could not have been greater if he had been made of 
iron. One who knew him well told me that she re- 
membered how he used to sit in the midst of cynical 
and critical counsellors who were bent upon thwarting 
his will and preventing emancipation. All the while 
he would sit silent, with a far-away look in his eyes, 
as if he saw things which others did not see, and at 
the end of the Council he would simply affirm his un- 
shaken resolution to put the thing through. And 
put through it was, all gainsayers to the contrary not- 
withstanding. So it may be with Nicholas II. 
He has put his hand to a still vaster task than that 
which tested the power of his grandfather, and it 
will be well if he brings to the work some of the 
adamantine firmness, almost stolidity, of his father. 
Tor when Alexander III. said a thing, that thing 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 351 

was. When he put his foot down, there it 
stayed. 

It may save some of my confreres some trouble and 
the Imperial household a considerable nuisance if I 
explain simply, once for all, how it was I came to be 
privileged with the opportunity of discussing public 
questions face to face in frank and friendly conver- 
sation with the Ruler of Russia. 

It was not until 1888 that I first thought it possible 
I might have a good square talk with the Tsar. I was 
then editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, and by the vig- 
orous method in which I had championed the Russian 
cause during the Penjdeh dispute and afterwards, I 
had succeeded in establishing for myself a more or less 
recognized position as a " Russian organ." I was 
abused as a Russian agent, I was said to be in the 
pay of the Russian Embassy, and, in short, I enjoyed 
the distinction of being pelted by all the vituperative 
brickbats which came handiest to those gentlemen who 
did me the honor to disagree with me. I need hardly 
say, at this time of day, that these complimentary as- 
sertions were, well — about as accurate as the majority 
of the statements which serve as the stock-in-trade of 
the Russophobist. Ever since I first wielded a pen 
as journalist I had been the faithful and resolute advo- 
cate of an Anglo-Russian entente. I got my ideas on 
this subject originally from Richard Cobden's political 
writings when I was quite a boy, and I have not de- 
parted from them a hair's breadth ever since. Never- 
theless, although I have never received any communi- 



352 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

cation from the Russian Government, and although I 
had often sought in vain even the most ordinary facili- 
ties in the way of acquiring information, the ordinary 
British Philistine got it firmly fixed into his thick 
head that in some way or other I was the officious, if 
not the official and inspired organ of the Tsar. 

The more I reflected upon the consequences which 
might follow from this absurd misconception of the 
actual state of things, the more necessary it seemed 
that I should make an effort to ascertain at first hand 
from the Emperor himself the general drift of his 
policy in all matters likely to affect the relations be- 
tween the two Empires. The possibility of altogether 
misleading British opinion by putting forward my own 
ideas of Russian policy, and having them accepted in- 
stantly, despite all my disclaimers, as the authoritative 
expression of the views of the Russian Government, 
seemed to me to justify an attempt to ascertain directly 
from the Emperor what his policy actually was. Ma- 
dame Novikoff, with whom I had had the pleasure and 
privilege of working in this good cause for ten years 
or more, was good enough to obtain me a reception at 
Gatschina in the early summer of 1888. When I met 
the Tsar, I put the case frankly before Alexander III., 
pointing out the danger of having accorded to me a 
position to which I had no claim, and suggesting that 
as I could not, despite all my disclaimers, rid myself 
of the reputation of being his English organ, it would 
at least be safer if he could give me more or less defin- 
ite information as to what were his ideas upon the 



TEE EMPEROR OF PEACE 353 

questions which were involved in the relations between 
England and Russia. The Emperor thought a little, 
and then said he considered the suggestion reasonable. 
What, he asked, did I want to know? " Everything/' 
I replied, at which he smiled and said, "Ask what 
questions you please, and I will answer them if I can." 
I availed myself of the opportunity to the full, and the 
Emperor was as good as his word. I asked, he an- 
swered, and by the time that the interview was over I 
had received a comprehensive and definite exposition, 
direct from the Emperor's own lips, of the policy he 
intended to pursue in relation to all the questions in 
which England was interested. 

Sir Robert Morier, our then Ambassador at St. 
Petersburg, speaking of this interview, said that no 
Russian Emperor had ever spoken so freely and fully 
upon all questions of foreign policy to any English- 
man, and he added that he could not conceive of any 
circumstances better calculated to secure absolute can- 
dor on the part of the Tsar than those in which our 
interview took place. 

A good deal that the Emperor told me was much 
questioned at the time. I was ridiculed for my credu- 
lity. One eminent statesman told me flatly that he 
did not believe what the Emperor had said, and he 
laughed me to scorn for my simplicity in accepting his 
word. But time passed, and the result proved that in 
every single item the Tsar had stated exactly the course 
which he actually pursued. So signal a vindication 
of the trustworthiness of the communications made to 
23 



354 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

me on that occasion was afforded by the subsequent 
events of his reign, that when it came to its close the 
same statesman who had derided me for my credulity, 
told me in the handsomest manner that he had been 
entirely wrong, and that I had been absolutely right. 

I must confess that I look back to that episode in my 
career with considerable satisfaction. There was no 
undertaking expressed or implied that I would support 
the policy of the Emperor. He asked nothing from 
me. I only asked from him the exact truth in order 
that I might avoid misleading my countrymen. He 
told me the exact truth, and as a result during all the 
rest of his reign I was able to speak with absolute cer- 
tainty where all the rest of my colleagues were com- 
pelled to rely upon inference and conjecture. I had 
no occasion to oppose his policy. It coincided with 
the policy which I have been advocating indepen- 
dently for years. But if I had differed from it, I 
never felt myself under the slightest obligation to ab- 
stain from opposing it to the uttermost of my ability. 

When I was taking my leave of the Emperor, he 
was good enough to say that if at any time unforeseen 
difficulties should arise between Russia and England, 
he would be glad to see me again. " See M. Giers," 
he said, " and arrange this before you go back to Eng- 
land." There was, however, no occasion for me to 
avail myself of this invitation. As long as Alexander 
III. lived there were no difficulties necessitating an- 
other pilgrimage to Gatschina. 

It was not until the dispute about the future of 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 355 

China began to be acute tbat I felt that I was justified 
in recalling the Emperor's invitation. I did not know, 
of course, whether Nicholas II. would be willing to see 
me, but I thought it well, under the circumstances, 
to recall his father's promise, and to inquire whether 
or not he would accord me the same privilege of 
frank and direct communication. The answer was 
in the affirmative: and that was why I went to 
Livadia. 

It is obvious, therefore, that there was no question 
here of an ordinary or extraordinary newspaper inter- 
view. Equally of course there could be no question 
of the publication of any report of the conversation 
that took place. All that I can say is that Nicholas II. 
received me with cordiality and accorded me facilities 
equal to those I received from his father for ascertain- 
ing exactly what his ideas were upon the questions 
which now or at any other future time might endanger 
the friendly relations of our two countries. As to 
what he said I can of course say nothing here, except- 
ing to affirm in the strongest possible terms my abso- 
lute conviction that the Emperor is as passionately 
devoted to peace as was his father, and that in no point 
of the whole range of his policy is there any antago- 
nism whatever between his aims and the interests of 
the British Empire. And as I do not say this without 
having had ample opportunities of informing myself 
as to the aims and objects of the foreign policy of Her 
Majesty's Government, I have a right to feel that I 
have indeed brought back from Livadia glad tidings 



356 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

of great joy, promising peace to the world and good- 
will to England. 

The day after I arrived at Yalta in the Crimea, as I 
was returning to the Hotel de Eussie, a Enssian lady 
whom I had casually met on the steamer the previous 
day greeted me pleasantly. " So you are going to 
see the Emperor to-morrow? It is very pleasant for 
you. I congratulate you on your good fortune. " I 
was somewhat confused. I had said nothing to any 
living soul about my request for an audience with the 
Tsar. I did not even know my application had been 
granted. Yet here was this stranger proclaiming the 
fact as if it was the talk of the town. On reaching 
my room, I found a card making an appointment with 
the Emperor, and the mystery was explained. Gen- 
eral Hesse had called, and, not finding me in, had left 
the card with the proprietor of the hotel. 

It was the first contrast that struck me between my 
visit to the late Tsar at Gatschina and my reception by 
his son at Livadia. At St. Petersburg in 1888, for 
some reason or other, it was held to be necessary to 
preserve the most absolute silence about the fact that 
I had been admitted to talk face to face with the Em- 
peror of all the Eussias. So well was the secret kept 
that on the very day I was received at Gatschina, when 
the wife of the German Ambassador was expressing 
to the wife of the British Ambassador her pitying com- 
passion for the inevitable disappointment of my pre- 
sumptuous aspiration to see the Tsar, it was thought 
inexpedient to undeceive her. Until the day the Tsar 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 357 

died, I never permitted myself to state in print that I 
had even so much as spoken to him. The first state- 
ment that was ever published that I had seen the 
Emperor appeared twelve months after my visit, and 
it did not come out through any act of mine. It was 
when the German Emperor paid his first visit to St. 
Petersburg that the story got about. It was one of 
the jokes of the Russian Court that I was the only 
man who had ever dismissed the Tsar. Alexander 
III. was much amused at my unwitting breach of 
court etiquette, and told the story to his German vis- 
itors, through whom it found its way into the press. 

I shall never forget the expression of mingled hor- 
ror and amusement on Sir Robert Morier's face when, 
on returning from Gatschina to the British Embassy, 
I told him how the interview had terminated. " You 
don't mean to say you dismissed the Emperor! " he 
exclaimed. " It's perfectly monstrous! " " Well," I 
said, " I don't know about that. But I knew the Em- 
press had been kept waiting for her lunch for half an 
hour or more. As I had got through all the questions 
I wished to put to the Tsar, I got up, thanked him 
for his patience and kindness, and said I would not 
detain him any longer." "You did, did you? " said 
Sir Robert. " Don't you know it is an unpardonable 
breach of etiquette even to stir from your seat till the 
Sovereign gives you the signal to rise?" "I knew 
nothing about that," I replied. " I only knew that, 
when I saw the Emperor smile as he got up, I had 
been an idiot for my considerateness. If I had only 



358 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

sat still, lie might have gone on talking for another 
half hour; and one does not talk to an Emperor every 
day." 

I was somewhat consoled for my simplicity when in 
Paris the other day I was told that President Faure 
had committed the same mistake when he met our 
Queen in the South of France. Instead of waiting to 
be dismissed, he rose first, to the amazement and even, 
it is said, displeasure on the part of Royalty. M. 
Faure apparently heard of his faux pas, and promptly 
determined to make up for his mistake by himself 
adopting the Royal etiquette. Now at the Elysee,* no 
matter how great may be the personage who is received 
by the President, he must not dare to rise until M. 
Faure gives the signal. The innovation is not alto- 
gether regarded with favor by the more austere Repub- 
licans, but their number is few. So M. Faure, the 
quondam tanner, becomes more and more like Louis 
Quatorze every day. Sic itur ad astral 

The homely simplicity of life in Yalta and Livadia 
was another contrast not less striking. In 1888 the 
Tsar lived more or less under the shadow of assassina- 
tion. His father had been blown to pieces in the 
streets of the capital, where now a stately church is 
being built to commemorate the sacrifice. He him- 
self had narrowly escaped destruction in the catas- 
trophe at Borki, where also a gorgeous fane with 
gilded dome has been erected as a thank-offering for 
a great deliverance. When I went down to Gatschina 
* This was written in January, 1899. 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 359 

in company with General Richter there was every- 
where the consciousness of a constantly impending 
invisible danger. I had to wait for an hour and 
more for the audience, and then I was conducted 
through what seemed a furlong of ante-rooms and cor- 
ridors and state apartments, a perfect maze of laby- 
rinthine perplexity, until at last I was ushered into 
the small workroom where Alexander III. received 
me. He was alone save for the presence of a huge 
dog, which had a most uncomfortable habit of jump- 
ing up every three minutes and walking backwards 
and forwards impatiently in front of the Tsar as if 
to intimate that it was time for the visitor to go. It 
is true that nothing could be more cordial, more 
simple, and more kindly than the Emperor's de- 
meanor. But I could not escape from a certain all- 
pervading sentiment of awe, which lasted all through 
the solitary lunch and the journey home. 

How different it was at Livaclia! There was no 
mystery, no distance, no solitude, no sense of unde- 
finable danger. There are few more beautiful spots 
in Europe than the neighborhood of Yalta. The drive 
to Livadia up hill and down dale, which we took at 
breakneck speed, between the mountains and the sea, 
is magnificent. The Euxine, not a Black but an azure 
Sea, stretches out far below, an immense expanse of 
sunlit water, across which flit interminable strings of 
birds, migrating southward from the approach of win- 
ter. The Mediterranean, seen from the Riviera, never 
looked more radiantly beautiful than did the Black 



360 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Sea on the day when I visited Livadia. On the road 
you come at every turn upon something quaint and 
strange. !Now it is a string of creaking country carts 
drawn by diminutive oxen, then it is the curious stage 
wagon of the Crimea, like a long double bench, on 
which the passengers sit back to back with their legs 
dangling in the air. Suddenly you hear a trampling 
of hoofs, and a gay cavalcade of ladies and gentlemen, 
splendidly mounted and escorted by picturesque Tar- 
tars, gallop by, calling up I know not by what strange 
association of ideas a flood of mingled memories of 
" The Bride of Abydos," and of the hawking parties 
of the Middle Ages. A gilded landmark indicates 
the point where the road to Livadia turns to the left 
from the high road. The driver removes the bells 
from his horse's neck, we show our laissez passer to 
the officer in command at the entrance, and then off 
we dash along a road good enough to be made in 
France, through the undulating vineyards in the midst 
of which Livadia stands. The vineyards are studded 
with prettily designed watch-towers from which sol- 
diers, standing on sentry, keep a vigilant eye upon all 
possible marauders or interlopers. A sailor paces 
backward and forward under the Russian flag which 
floats high above the trees. A Circassian, apparently 
on duty, glances at you as you drive by, but other 
traces of vigilance there are none, any more than in 
the grounds at Balmoral or in the park at Windsor. 

It was at the latter end of October when I was at 
Livadia, and the changing color of the vine leaves, 




OX THE ROAD FItOM LIVADIA TO SEBASTOPOL 



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BALAKLAYA, TOWN AND BAY 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 361 

varying from the deepest purple to the hue of bur- 
nished gold, produced a singularly beautiful effect. 
All the grapes were gathered, save those for the table ; 
the rest had gone to the wine-press. Alexander III. 
being a thrifty man, and keenly alive to the impor- 
tance of developing the resources of Russia, paid great 
attention to his vineyards; and wines from his vineyard 
figure in the wine list in all the hotels of St. Peters- 
burg. The hills are well wooded, and the dark foliage 
of the plantations contrasted splendidly with the glow- 
ing carpet of color that spread over hill and vale down 
to the wooded edge of the deep blue sea. Inland, the 
mountain tops swathed in clouds formed a fitting back- 
ground to the romantic scene. Better site for an 
Imperial pleasure house could not be imagined. 

There are several houses within the park limits; 
some of them hardly distinguishable in appearance 
from the Emperor's. They are all of the same general 
aspect, and are characterized more by the air of com- 
fort and taste than by magnificence. The Emperor's 
house is a beautiful country villa, two stories high, with 
spacious verandah, plentifully overgrown with foliage, 
with wide eaves, standing like a nest among the trees 
in a wilderness of flowers. You enter a hall, remark- 
able chiefly as the location of the loudest clanging 
telephone I ever heard, rest for a few minutes in a 
simply furnished waiting-room, and then comes the 
summons. You follow an officer a few stairs up a 
staircase and you are in the Emperor's study. You 
might be in an English country house. Everything 



362 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

is simple and comfortable. The only feature not 
quite familiar were the lovely baskets of fruit, which, 
both in color and fragrance, added an element unusual 
but in delightful harmony with the sylvan character of 
the rural retreat. 

"When at Sebastopol I wrote for the Daily News a 
description of the scene on the evening of the Em- 
peror's visit to that stronghold, as an introduction to 
my report of the impression produced on my mind by 
my visit to Livadia. As it was written when the im- 
pression was deepest, I cannot do better than reproduce 
it here: — 

Sebastopol, October 29, 1898. 

Last night Sebastopol was en fete. The Emperor 
and Empress had come over in the Imperial yacht 
from Yalta to inspect the Black Sea fleet and to meet 
the Dowager Empress on her arrival from Copen- 
hagen. The yacht was lying opposite the Count's 
landing-place, all aglow with electric light. A short 
distance further down the harbor lay five battleships 
black and grim, their huge bulk looming large across 
the gleaming water. Viewed from my balcony, the 
scene was singularly beautiful. The moon, now at 
her full, shone down from a cloudless sky, flooding 
the white city with white light. From the boulevard, 
where once frowned the three-tiered rows of the two 
hundred and sixty cannon of Fort Mcholas, there 
came, as the music rose and fell, throbbing strains of 
melody. In the streets the bright lights of the elec- 
tric cars shone out here and there through the leafy 



TEE EMPEROR OF PEACE 3G3 

avenue; in the harbor the lynx-eyed patrol-boat, with 
its double lamp, steamed ceaselessly round and round 
the Imperial yacht, keeping jealous watch, like the 
fire-eyed water-snake of fairy legend over the Prince's 
bower. 

I had crossed that afternoon the battlefield of Bala- 
klava, and the site of the famous Flagstaff Battery, 
behind which the Russians kept at bay for two years 
the allied forces of four nations. Forty-two years ago 
the whole south side of the city where I was standing 
had been battered into bloodstained, smoking ruin. 
Two miles to the northward stood the gray pyramid 
erected in the Russian cemetery to the memory of the 
tens of thousands of Russian soldiers who died in the 
defence of their fatherland against the foreign in- 
vader. The ink with which I write this letter is taken 
from an inkstand made out of case-shot picked up on 
the battlefield. Everywhere some name recalled the 
sombre memories of the great crime whereby the long 
peace was broken up and the half -century of war was 
begun. Two lines came humming through my 
head: — 

Here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam, 
And man was butchered by his fellow man. 

And wherefore butchered? Wherefore but because 
those who decreed the slaughter wished to destroy 
Sebastopol and to forbid Russia being the naval mis- 
tress of the Black Sea. Now Sebastopol is far more 
strongly armed than it was in 1853. And the great 



364 TEE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

floating fortresses of iron and steel anchored in the 
harbor make the Tsar the undisputed Lord of the Eux- 
ine up to the very gates of the Bosphorus. Every thing- 
is as it was before the war began, only more so — ex- 
cepting the hundred thousand gallant soldiers who 
died that it may be otherwise than it was written in 
the book of fate. 

Sebastopol was, half a century since, the Colosseum 
of the Continent. But, as in the Colosseum a simple 
cross reared in the arena once drenched by the blood 
of so many martyrs symbolizes the triumph of the 
Prince of Peace over the pride and cruelty of Im- 
perial Pome, so last night, in the harbor of Sebastopol, 
the Tsar's yacht seemed an emblem not less significant 
of the triumph of peace. For there, in the midst of 
all that could most easily tempt a monarch to swell 
with pride at conscious strength or to indulge in bitter 
feelings against the enemies who invaded his country, 
was the Tsar of Russia, fresh from reviewing his iron- 
clads and inspecting his stronghold, thinking only with 
passionate, impatient preoccupation of how he could 
best bring about the establishment of the kingdom of 
peace. The gladiatorial games went on in the Colos- 
seum until the day when the monk Telemachus flung 
himself into the arena and sealed his protest with his 
life. 

If the Tsar is not a Telemachus, a fanatical enthu- 
siast, wild with a fixed idea, in pursuit of which he is 
ready to sacrifice everything, what may he be? What 
is the precise equivalent of this new factor in the sum 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 365 

of the forces which govern the world ? Ever since the 
publication of the Peace Rescript, the question every 
one has been asking is: What manner of man is its 
author? He is the x in the equation. What does x 
amount to ? Upon the answer to that question every- 
thing depends. It was to solve that problem I came 
to Russia, and now, after a week's sojourn, I think I 
have found the answer. I have heard a great deal 
from those who are in the best position to know — his 
Ministers, the people of his household, the ambassadors 
of foreign Powers, and his own personal friends. I 
have also been freely entertained by all manner of 
stories, told by — I do not say his enemies, for he has 
few, but by those who dissent from his policy, and 
occupy themselves with more or less belittling his per- 
sonality. And, lastly, I have had the privilege of 
meeting the Emperor himself, and of basing my judg- 
ment upon my own personal impression of the man 
at close quarters. 

It is necessarily upon these personal impressions 
that my judgment is chiefly based. 

When I set out on my quest I was told that the 
Emperor was weak physically and mentally. He was 
said to be the mere tool of " the wily MuraviefT," or 
the obedient puppet now of the Empress Dowager, 
and then of the present Empress. He was a good- 
hearted young man, no doubt, but possessing neither 
the physical nor intellectual qualities to make a great 
Sovereign. Even those who spoke kindly of him said 
that, although he was well meaning, he had no decision 



366 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

of character, and that lie constantly allowed his own 
convictions and inclinations to be overshadowed by 
the authority of the Ministers whom he inherited from 
his father. And, finally, I was always told not to 
think too much of the Rescript, for the Emperor was 
not strong enough to bear up against the forces 
brought to bear against him. It was with all this in 
my mind that I had my first audience at Livadia. A 
Princess at the Court, as I was leaving, asked me, 
" Well, and what is your opinion? " To whom I re- 
plied simply, " I thank God for him! If he be spared 
to Russia, that young man will go far." 

That was my opinion then. It is my opinion still. 
But it is deepened and confirmed by subsequent com- 
munications. " What went ye out into the wilderness 
to see ? A prophet ? Yea, I say unto you, and more 
than a prophet/' was the old question and answer. 
And so, if I am asked, " What went ye out into the 
wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? " I 
reply, " An Emperor, yea, I say unto you, and more 
than an Emperor." For while no unworthy successor 
of the most illustrious line of monarchs who have ruled 
in Europe this century, he aspires after greater con- 
quests, he indulges a nobler ambition. A group of 
peasants, the other day, were talking about his Peace 
Rescript, the drift of which they divined rather than 
understood. 

Said one of them with deep feeling : " His grand- 
father made us peasants free. The grandson is trying 
to liberate all mankind from war." And that peasant 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 367 

spoke the true word. After hearing him speak of 
evils and miseries entailed by the war system of the 
world, the familiar words of the Seventh Beatitude 
recurred to my mind almost as a benediction from on 
high : " Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be 
called the children of God! " 

Nicholas II. in stature does not resemble his father, 
who was a son of Anak. It is a mistake, however, to 
speak of him as if he were exceptionally slight. He 
is about the same height as General Gordon, whom he 
resembles in other things besides the number of his 
inches. "When he rides or sits, the Emperor seems 
as tall as most men. When he stands, he is a little 
taller than Lord Nelson or Napoleon Buonaparte. 
Good stuff, says the old adage, is often put up in little 
bundles, and the giant in popular legend is usually 
as dull as he is huge. In physique the Emperor is 
wiry and vigorous. One who sees him every day told 
me that physically Nicholas is a much healthier man 
than his father. Alexander III., although great in 
stature and with immense muscular development, was, 
from the insurance company's point of view, by no 
means so " good a life " as that of his successor. The 
Tsar is full of vitality, quick and active in his move- 
ments, fond of outdoor exercise. Certainly no one 
meeting him for the first time would put him down 
among the weakly. 

The first and most conspicuous characteristic of 
Alexander III. was the solidity — it would be wrong 
to call it the stolidity — of his mental temperament. 



368 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

He was by no means dull. But lie was slow. He 
put his foot down like an elephant, and when he put 
it down he was not quick to take it up again. The 
characteristic of his son and successor is quite different. 
The note of his intellectual temperament is that of 
extreme alertness. As he is also extremely sympa- 
thetic, this makes him one of the most charming per- 
sons to talk to I have ever met. The two qualities 
were also united in General Gordon, whose nimbleness 
of mind was so excessive that it was somewhat difficult 
to keep up with him. If, in talking to the late Tsar, 
you were at a loss for a word or an illustration, he 
patiently waited until you found it. His son, on the 
other hand, would divine your meaning, and help you 
out. He is as quick as a needle, and quite as bright. 
Speaking of one of Her Majesty's ambassadors the 
other day, I tried to explain his excessive slowness in 
the uptake by saying that the only way to get an idea 
into his head was to take a hammer and drive it in 
like a ten-penny nail. This is the very antithesis of 
Nicholas II. I have seldom met any one so quick to 
seize a point. Y^hatever he may fail in, it will not 
be in lack of capacity to see and understand. 

This exceptional rapidity of perception is united 
with a remarkable memory and a very wide grasp of 
an immense range of facts. I know at least some 
eminent English politicians holding high office who, 
in this respect, are a mournful contrast to the Em- 
peror. When questioned even about the affairs of 
their own department, their fingers seem to be all 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 369 

thumbs. They have not got their dates right, or they 
are vague and misty about the exact drift of important 
negotiations. There are plenty of such woolly-minded 
men in high places, and it is a real pleasure to meet 
any one who has his facts at his finger ends, who tells 
you in a flash what was done or what was not done, 
and whose ideas, be they right or wrong, are lucidly 
expressed in a very definite form. Alertness, exact- 
ness, lucidity and definiteness are four excellent quali- 
ties in a man, and the Emperor has them all. With 
all this, there is an absolute absence of anything even 
distantly approaching the priggishness of such a supe- 
rior person as the new Viceroy of India. Many years 
ago Mr. Gladstone described the present Emperor as 
a charming type of the best of our public-school boys. 
He was frank, fearless, perfectly natural, and sim- 
plicity itself. Nicholas II. is no longer a boy. He 
has borne for several trying years the burden of one 
of the greatest Empires in the world. But he is still 
as absolutely simple and unaffected as he was when 
Mr. Gladstone met him in Copenhagen fifteen years 
ago. There is still in him all the delightful schoolboy 
abandon of manner, a keen sense of humor and a 
hearty outspoken frankness in expressing his opinions 
which makes you feel that you are dealing with a man 
whose character is as transparent as crystal. Add to 
all this a modesty as admirable as it is rare, and it must 
be admitted that even if the net human product should 
fall short of being a great ruler, he has at least all 
the qualities which make men beloved by their fellows. 
24 



370 THE EXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

The bright, clear blue eye; the quick, sympathetic 
change of feature; the merry laugh, succeeded in a 
moment by an expression of noble gravity and of high 
resolve ; the rapidity and grace of his movements, even 
his curious little expressive shrug of the shoulders, are 
all glimpses of a character not often found unspoiled 
by power. 

Those who know him best appear to love him most, 
and, naturally enough, each one thinks his only fault- 
is that he is too ready to sacrifice his own convenience 
and his own wishes to oblige the others. A more duti- 
ful son never sat on a throne. It was, perhaps, carry- 
ing filial affection a long way when, in order to sus- 
tain his mother at her mother's grave, the Tsar crossed 
and re-crossed Russia from end to end, and that at a 
time when all Europe was ringing with the crime that 
cost the Empress of Austria her life. But, consider- 
ing the conspicuous example of the opposite extreme 
in the case of the other young Kaiser, the Tsar's tender 
affection for his mother, even if carried to excess, is 
at least a fault on virtue's side. ■ He is singularly 
happy in his marriage, and the Emperor of Russia will 
never lack one of the most intelligent and loyal of 
counsellors while his wife lives. As his parents before 
him set Europe an example of domestic unity and 
felicity, so Nicholas II. maintains the honorable and 
happy tradition. He is loyal in his friendships, and 
slow to part with any of those who are in his own 
or were in his father's service. " Thy own friend 
and thy father's friend forsake not," is a maxim so 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 371 

much forgotten nowadays that it is difficult to com- 
plain even if in a few instances this tenacious loyalty 
to old servants is carried further than is altogether to 
be desired in the interests of the state. 

All this, it may be said, may be true. Nicholas II. 
may be an ideal son, a perfect husband, a faithful 
friend; he may be fascinating and simple, and his 
mind may be as alert and sympathetic as you please; 
but these qualities might all exist in a man who was 
at the same time a very poor ruler. That, of course, 
is quite true. But when we are discussing his quali- 
fications as a ruler it is well to start on a solid founda- 
tion from his character as a man. Now let us turn 
to consider whether or not he has the qualities of a 
great Tsar. 

What are these qualities? First of all, the quality 
needed to rule any men justly, whether they be one 
hundred and twenty or one hundred and twenty mil- 
lions, is the possession of an eye to see the essential 
truth whether in men or things. To speak truly is 
important, but to see truly is indispensable. Has he 
insight to pierce to the soul of things? "Will he take 
the trouble to learn the facts, or can he be befooled 
and deceived by cunningly devised seemings and sub- 
terfuges? Secondly, after the capacity to see comes 
the courage to dare to do — a quality which depends 
partly on temperament, but still more, perhaps, upon 
the extent to which the man is dominated by the idea 
of duty. Thirdly, if he has the eye to see and the 
heart to dare, the next question is whether he has the 



372 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

strength of resolution and tenacity of purpose to per- 
sist patiently, unwearied by delays, undaunted by dif- 
ficulties, until, even if alone against tlie world, he 
carries out his purpose. 

Tried by these three tests, I do not think Nicholas 
II. will be found wanting. He has inherited from 
his father the hatred for falsehood, and he has added 
thereto the industry of a singularly active mind almost 
painfully overwhelmed by the immensity of his re- 
sponsibilities. No one, not even a newspaper editor, 
is omniscient; but no one, not even the most consci- 
entious of able editors, could work harder in mastering 
his facts. He has, moreover, the divining faculty of 
intense sympathy — a gift which opens the way to the 
heart of many subjects at the door of which mere study 
would knock in vain. Whether he has the supreme 
gift of genius in the discerning of the essential truth 
of a situation we can only judge by what he has already 
done. So far his reign has been distinguished by 
three things. First, his frank recognition of the fact 
that until he found his feet and had acquired some ex- 
perience in the business of governing it became him to 
serve his apprenticeship modestly and silently. He 
may have been helped to practise this commendable 
self-suppression by the conspicuous absence of that 
virtue in another young man on a throne. But what- 
ever helped or hindered, Nicholas II. set to work to 
learn his business, and studied diligently at the feet 
of the ablest statesman Russia has produced of late 
years. Prince LobanofT's Eastern policy was as de- 



TEE EMPEROR OF PEACE 373 

testable as Lord Beaconsfield's, but no one denied that 
he was the supreme intellect in the Russian service. 
The Tsar recognized his ability and profited by his 
teaching. 

The second salient feature in his reign was marked 
by a significant blend of the two conflicting tendencies 
— the intuitive instinct which enabled him to divine 
the right thing to be done, and the modest reluctance 
to impose his will upon the more experienced adminis- 
trators who thwarted and crippled his policy. I refer 
to the generous initiative taken by the Tsar in the di- 
rection of an amelioration of the harshness of the Pol- 
ish regime as he inherited it from his father. In that 
he showed true insight and a keen sympathy with sub- 
jects who were suffering from undoubted grievances. 
But the forces of reaction and the jealousy of a domi- 
nant bureaucracy, aided perhaps by the somewhat 
unreasonable expectations of some of the Poles, 
checked the full realization of his designs. To some 
this may seem an admission that he was lacking in 
strength. It would be more just to recognize that he 
felt he was lacking in experience rather than author- 
ity. He was young to the responsibilities of govern- 
ment. It was better to bide his time. Safely and 
slow — they stumble who run fast. To have begun his 
reign by a struggle which would have strained the 
strength of his father might have been magnificent, 
but it would not have been statesmanship. It is not 
till we come to the third act of his reign that we have 
the first distinct revelation of the kind of Emperor 



374 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

with whom the world has now got to reckon, and from 
this starting-point we shall do well to form our 
estimate. 

There is one thing about the Rescript which no one 
can deny. It was splendidly audacious as well as 
magnificently ambitious. "Wise it may be or foolish, 
but mean, petty, or unworthy it was not. The re- 
sponse which it has elicited, and will yet more elicit, 
throughout the civilized world is sufficient to show 
with what master hand the young Tsar had struck a 
note which vibrated in every heart. Here at last we 
have a monarch who has an eye to see the cancer which 
is eating into the heart of the modern state, and has 
the courage boldly to proclaim in the hearing of the 
world the inevitable consequences of allowing the 
deadly malady to run its course. 

Will he have the nerve to stick to it? The resolu- 
tion to put it through? The strength to overpower 
the immense forces which will be banded together to 
defeat his generous and most sensible design? That 
is the crux of the whole question. I do not deny that 
probably the majority of bystanders openly proclaim 
their belief, perhaps their hope, that he may fail. 
But, for my part, I hope better things of the young 
man who may inherit somewhat of the iron will as 
well as the name of his great-grandfather. It is, of 
course, impossible to predict with any certainty what 
any human being may do under a test so severe as that 
to which Nicholas II. is now being exposed. But in 
forming our estimate of the chances, let us look 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 375 

frankly at the position, against which it is easy to see 
the forces that are arrayed. The immense strength 
of the most formidable vested interest entrenched in 
every country, the clotted mass of international jeal- 
ousies and rival ambitions — in short, the devil and all 
his agents everywhere are in the field against him, 
most active, perhaps, where they are least visible, sap- 
ping and mining for his destruction behind the mask 
of fair-seeming professions of sympathetic support. 
But, on the other hand, there are no inconsiderable 
forces to be counted on. First and foremost, there is 
the inherent force and strength which lies in the 
autocracy itself. The solemn vows of consecration 
at the Coronation are no mere idle form to a mind 
so highly attuned to the sentiment of duty as that of 
the present Tsar. Nothing but the continual goading 
of the duty which every Tsar owes to the unnumbered 
millions who look up to him as their terrestrial Provi- 
dence could sustain him in his daily task, and the 
same upward thrust will tend to stiffen his resolve and 
strengthen his will to put this thing through. 

Secondly, let it never be forgotten that Nicholas 
was not only born in the purple, but that he has as his 
sires and grandsires as imperious a series of monarchs 
as ever swayed a sceptre. Heredity counts for much, 
and it is not likely that the successor of Alexander I., 
who sacrificed his capital to deliver Europe from Na- 
poleon — of Nicholas, who for the lifetime of a genera- 
tion was practically the Chief Justice of the Continent 
— of Alexander II., who emancipated the serfs and 



376 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

liberated Bulgaria — and of Alexander III., the Peace 
Keeper of Europe, has got so little iron in his blood 
as to flinch, even though all men forsake him and flee. 
Having put his hand to the plough, he will drive his 
furrow straight. Nor will he look back, any more 
than did his grandfather in the heroic fight that he 
made and won for the liberation of the serfs. 

Thirdly, those who know him best and have worked 
with him assure me that the impression — due to his 
modest self -suppression during the years of his noviti- 
ate — that he is not a man of strong character is an 
entire mistake. One of his Ministers said to me, " It 
is true his body is small, but er hat einen grossen 
Muth." Whether we translate Muth as courage, reso- 
lution, will, or " go," it is not a phrase that would be 
applied to a weak sovereign. Another Minister said 
he had seen him in very difficult circumstances put his 
foot down with such resolution and so insist upon his 
will being done, that he had some misgivings lest, 
when he found himself more familiar with affairs, 
Russia might find in him, as in the first Nicholas, 
rather too much will than too little. Lastly, an inti- 
mate personal friend, who had known him before his 
accession, remarked to me, " People often say that his 
heart is stronger than his head, and that his will is 
weakest of all. But I, who have seen him closely in 
many varied circumstances, assure you that of the 
three I have much more confidence in the strength of 
his will than I have either in his head or his heart." 

I have dwelt at this length upon the personal equa- 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 377 

tion because it is the most important of all the factors 
in this problem. I think I liaise said enough to justify 
my belief that Nicholas II. is no unworthy champion 
of that war against war, his proclamation of which has 
brought such a flood of new life to the hopes of man- 
kind. But there are two things to be taken into ac- 
count — two things and one other — of which here I 
need not speak — in estimating the chances of success. 
One is that the Emperor is by no means without power- 
ful lieutenants in his Campaign of Peace. A trium- 
virate of Ministers — as remarkable a group of men as 
are to be found to-day in any European country — are 
heart and soul with the Tsar. One is General Kouro- 
patkin, that brilliant and successful soldier whose 
great ambition as Minister of War is to render effect- 
ive assistance to his sovereign in arresting the growth 
of armaments. The second is M. Witte, who has re- 
formed the currency, rehabilitated the finances, and 
established so drastic a system of liquor legislation that 
practically all sale of drink to be consumed on the 
premises has been abolished throughout the most of 
the Empire. The third, and perhaps the most impor- 
tant of the three, is Count LamsdorfT, the working 
head of the Foreign Office, of which Count MuraviefT 
is the genial and ornamental chief. 

Count LamsdorfT, the pupil and successor of M. de 
Giers, is the living incarnation of all the archives and 
the traditions of the Foreign Office. The hard-work- 
ing slave of the Department which he directs, he is 
said neither to sleep nor to rest, but to toil night and 



378 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

day with inexhaustible energy at his desk until he has 
become a veritable monster of diplomatic lore, the past 
master in all that pertains to the action of Russia be- 
yond her frontiers. None of these three statesmen 
are amateurs, visionaries, enthusiasts, or youngsters. 
They have all grown more or less gray in the practical 
and arduous task of administering the affairs of a great 
empire. With such counsellors, Nicholas II. need 
not be afraid to speak up to the enemies in the gates, 
and even to those foes which every man finds in his 
own household. 

The second factor to be remembered is the immense 
power that may be called into being in support of the 
Tsar's initiative if the masses of the Continent, at 
present distrustful and apathetic, should take heart 
from demonstrations of British and American enthu- 
siasm, and unite in demanding that something should 
be done. It is only occasionally that the democracy 
can act with effect, but this is one of those times. But 
what should be done should be done quickly. 

Nicholas II. will never be a Peter the Great. He 
is not a Titan, nor has he the energy of a demon. He 
works hard, laboriously going through all the innu- 
merable State papers submitted to him from each of 
the departments; conscientiously endeavoring to ar- 
rive at a right judgment upon each question on which 
he is expected to say Yea or Nay; but there is about 
him nothing of the Berserker fire and fury which 
blazed in Peter. The Emperor is a man full of gener- 
ous impulses, to which it is his pleasure to give free 



TEE EMPEROR OF PEACE 379 

play; but he is a modest man, and when he finds his 
desires thwarted by counsellors who had grown gray 
before he was out of the nursery, he hesitates at sweep- 
ing them to one side. The very keenness of his intel- 
lectual sympathy tends to make him less dashing, less 
authoritative than he would be were his perceptions 
more blunted. He understands so well his own limi- 
tations; he realizes so painfully day by day how impos- 
sible it is for any single human brain adequately to ap- 
preciate all the elements in the factors on which it is his 
hard destiny constantly to pronounce an authoritative 
opinion, that there is in him none of the down-thump, 
cut-and-thrust, bludgeon-like method of blunter- 
minded mortals. Hence what we may expect is that 
he will constantly endeavor to aim at the highest ideals 
both of Peace, of Liberty, and of Progress ; but when, 
in the pursuit of those ideals, he comes up against too 
solid obstacles of apathy and vis inertia? and ingrained 
prejudices in the case of his advisers and subjects, he 
will not risk everything in order to gain something. 
He will push in the right direction, though he will 
smash no crockery in order to attain his ends. Such, 
at least, is the impression I formed from what is known 
of his reign and of the self-revelation which he af- 
forded me in the course of our conversation. His is 
a fine nature, whose failures will be chiefly due to its 
virtues, rather than to its faults. 

This disposition may qualify the Emperor better for 
the duties which he has undertaken as leader in the 
cause of Peace than had he been as masterful, say, as 



380 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

his near neighbor, the German Emperor. There are 
questions in which it was necessary not to lead but to 
drive; but this question of peace and war is emphatic- 
ally not one for handling with a high hand. The 
very delicacy and modesty, the reserve and the shrink- 
ing from violent expressions of self-will, which more 
or less impede the progress of necessary reforms in the 
internal administration, may be the best qualifications 
for success in an attempt to induce the nations to agree 
to some method of settling disputes other than that by 
war. His impatient desire to get something done, and 
his utter indifference to what it is, so long as it is some- 
thing practical and something that can be carried into 
effect at once, are very characteristic of the man. He 
is no pedant, he has no cut-and-dried scheme for in- 
augurating a millennium. What he sees clearly is 
the drift to the abyss. What he longs for most is that 
something should be done, and that at once, in order 
to arrest that drift. Further than that he does not go. 
He has strong humanitarian prejudices against the use 
of explosive bullets and all the later manifestations of 
scientific deviltry in the art of war. His grandfather 
before him succeeded in inducing Europe to put a veto 
upon explosive rifle bullets, and he would be very glad 
to carry the same principle a step further and abolish 
the use of the Dum Dum and other such bullets, 
which seem to him needless aggravations of the hor- 
rors of war; but he has no preconceived prescription 
drawn up to impose upon the Conference. He would 
probably say, if he were asked, that because he took 




11 Papagallo, Rome 
AN ITALIAN REPRESENTATION OF THE RUSSIAN EAGLES 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 381 

the initiative in asking the Powers to meet together 
to discuss what could be done, that is no reason why he 
should be expected to provide them with a panacea for 
the evils which they all admit and deplore, but indi- 
vidually are powerless to remove. He has no exclu- 
sive right of initiative in the Conference which he has 
summoned. 

Statesmen who have grown old in the practical ad- 
ministration of the affairs of their states might well 
be expected to put forward more practical proposals 
than emanate from a young Sovereign of his inexperi- 
ence. But should the Nestors of Europe fail to make 
any suggestions, he will not shrink from submitting 
suggestions of his own — not because he thinks that 
they are perfect, but because he is quite certain some- 
thing should be done, and if no one else will act he 
will do the best he can. The Dual and Triple Alli- 
ance, both equally professing to be formed for the pur- 
pose of maintaining peace, might coalesce for the pur- 
pose of preventing any appeal to arms for some definite 
period, which by its very limitation would be much 
more practical than a general disclaimer for all time 
of all the signatory Powers to remain at peace for a 
term of years. There would naturally come the pro- 
posal that during this period the Powers should define 
in advance the amount of expenditure which they con- 
template on the maintenance of their armaments ; and, 
thirdly, the suggestion will probably be made that, 
following the precedent of the Treaty of Paris, the 
Powers will bind themselves before appealing to the 



382 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

sword to invite the services of a friendly neutral in 
whose hands might be left the conduct of the final 
stages of all controversies likely to lead to war. " Al- 
ways mediate before you fight, and only fight (if you 
must fight at all) after you have mediated/' will prob- 
ably be the formula which will emanate from the Con- 
ference. This is pregnant with infinite possibilities 
of good to Europe. 

Of the Emperor's disposition, all those who know 
him best speak in the highest possible terms. Her 
Majesty, who has known him from his boyhood, enter- 
tains for him an intense feeling of personal affection, 
such as one might have for a favorite grandchild. His 
public appearances in this country have been so very 
f cav that it is difficult to form any estimate upon what 
we have seen or heard of him. He is very quick in 
the uptake, discerning with rapid intuition the drift 
of what is being said to him. He is methodical in his 
ways, and prefers to have the pros and cons of any 
question submitted to him drawn up in clear and brief 
terms. He is a devoted husband, and has the faculty 
of winning and retaining friendships. " Of all my 
cousins," said the Duke of York recently, " I think he 
is my favorite; and you know," said the Duke with a 
smile, " I have a great many cousins." His personal 
charm arises, no doubt, largely from the fact that he 
is so natural and so frank, so simple, and yet so full 
of humor and human sympathy. It would no doubt 
be easier for him to bear the burden which the Des- 
tinies have placed upon his shoulders were he a little 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 383 

harder, and if he felt a little less keenly the miseries 
with which, with all his power, he is impotent to deal. 
It is, however, a great thing that a man in his high 
position should be bowed down rather by the conscious- 
ness of his own imperfections than puffed up by the 
pride of his power, and it is difficult to imagine any- 
thing better for the world than that one in whose hands 
there is placed over one hundred and twenty-nine mil- 
lions of people should be so conscious of the need of 
improving their condition as to feel impatient wrath 
at the suggestion that he should waste his resources 
in seizing territory which would add still more to the 
weight which, like Atlas, he has to support. When 
I came back from Russia I had a conversation with 
one of the most influential of Her Majesty's Ministers. 
I said to him : " Before I begin to tell you anything 
about what he says, could you conceive an ideal Em- 
peror w T hose point of view w r ould be such as to make 
you as enthusiastic about an Anglo-Russian entente as 
I am myself? " He thought a minute, and then said, 
" Well, it is at least thinkable." " Then would you 
try," I said, " to define w T hat your ideal Emperor would 
say as to his policy and his point of view in order that 
you might be so enthusiastic? " " Certainly," he said, 
and thereupon he went over the various questions upon 
which he would like his ideal Emperor to express such 
and such opinions. I think there were eight points 
altogether. When he had finished I said, " Well, I 
can only say this. One of these points was never men- 
tioned in our conversation, but upon the other seven 



384 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

the Emperor said exactly what you said you would 
wish an ideal Emperor to say." It would be difficult 
indeed to conceive of any man occupying the Russian 
throne who could be more absolutely fitted to become 
the leader of a great humanitarian movement such as 
this, or one who was more well disposed towards that 
understanding with England without which no good 
can result from the Peace Conference. We can only 
hope that, when even Mr. Chamberlain has reverted 
to his first love, the rulers of both countries may be 
able to arrive at an arrangement which will practically 
banish war from the world, for there is nothing of 
which the Emperor is more firmly convinced than that 
if Russia and England but hold together the peace of 
the world is secured. 

When I was in Rome it was my good fortune to meet 
one of the most remarkable Russian women of our 
time. Among many other things she told me, I was 
most impressed by the remark she made on the subject 
of the ideal married life of the late Emperor. She 
said, " I recently revisited Russia after an absence of 
several years. What struck me most was the Avonder- 
ful change that had taken place in the tone of Russian 
society on the subject of marriage. I could not have 
believed that the effect even of so supreme an example 
of an ideal home could have been so great. I remem- 
ber saying as I left Russia that great as was the service 
to humanity which was rendered by Alexander II. 
when he emancipated the serfs, it was not greater than 
that rendered to the moral evolution of Russia by the 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 385 

example of that stainless life. I felt the change every- 
where. No husband and wife were ever more united 
in tenderest affection than the parents of the present 
Emperor, and I felt in every home the subtle influence 
of their example." To have been born in such a home 
was a far richer inheritance than the throne of an 
Empire. Nicholas II. in this respect is the worthy 
son of a worthy sire. The reverence for womanhood, 
the profound respect and devotion for his mother 
which distinguish him, are by no means the smallest 
of the qualities which fit him for his exalted position. 

Ten years ago, when I was at St. Petersburg, I had 
the privilege of seeing a good deal of Mr. Heath, the 
English tutor of the present Emperor. There was no 
man in Russia of whom Sir Robert Morier — no mean 
judge of character — had a higher opinion. He was 
an English gentleman in the best sense of the word, 
simple, unaffected, frank, straightforward and manly. 
I remember his telling me an anecdote of his pupil 
which made a very pleasant impression on my mind 
at the time. 

They were reading together " The Lady of the 
Lake," and they came to that spirited stanza which 
describes the scene in Stirling, when the castle gates 
were flung open and King James rode down the steep 
descent, while the crowd rent the heavens with their 
acclaims — 

" Long live the Commons' King, King James ! " 

"The Commons' King! " exclaimed the boy with 
sparkling eyes — " that is what I should like to be ! " 
25 



386 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

" But every Russian Tsar is the Commons' King," 
exclaimed a patriotic Russian to whom I told the story. 
It may be so, no doubt, in theory, but a good deal de- 
pends upon the application. And Nicholas II. is 
penetrated through and through with the passionate 
spirit of sympathy with the poor which is so distinctive 
a note of our time. The thought of the miseries of the 
famine-stricken peasantry who in some one or other 
of the provinces of his vast dominions are always suf- 
fering, is not one of the least of the burdens of his 
position. To appear to be so powerful and yet to feel 
at every turn so powerless to alleviate the wretched- 
ness of these dim millions is one of the penalties of 
his position. M. Bloch, the Warsaw banker and econo- 
mist, who has spent years in investigating the social 
condition of the Russian peasantry, told me that noth- 
ing could exceed the keen, sustained, sympathetic at- 
tention with which the Emperor listened to his lengthy 
exposition of the immensity of the work which needs 
to be clone before the mass of his subjects could be 
brought up to the standard of the more prosperous 
peoples. In some great provinces there is not even 
one midwife to 100,000 of the population. Doctors 
are still scarcer. Schools are few and far between. 
The whole machinery of civilization has yet to be 
created for millions. The task of the social regenera- 
tion of the myriads who regard him as a terrestrial 
Providence is so immense that nothing but a sustain- 
ing sense of duty could enable him to bear up even 
for a single day, 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 387 

It says much for the Tsardom that after centuries 
of experience the simple faith of the peasants in the 
superhuman, almost divine character of their rulers 
is still so strong. A poor woman, who was badly 
crushed in the awful catastrophe that cast so terrible 
a gloom over the Coronation, lay in the hospital when 
the Emperor paid a visit to the ward. " Why were 
you in the crowd? " asked her attendant. " You did 
not go to get a cup? " alluding to the Coronation cup 
that was distributed to all comers as a memento of the 
occasion. " Oh, no," she replied, " I went to see the 
Emperor." " Then why don't you look at him now? " 
they said. " He is here standing by your side." 
" Don't tell me lies," the poor creature replied angrily. 
" As if I did not know that Emperors are not made 
like that! " Alas, Emperors are but made of mortal 
clay, notwithstanding the supernal splendor with 
which they are invested in the eyes of their subjects, 
and heavy indeed is the burden of the oversight of a 
hundred and twenty-nine millions of their fellow-men. 
Small marvel is it that the Emperor should feel, as he 
one day declared with solemn emphasis, that the bur- 
den was so heavy he would not care to inflict it even 
upon his worst enemy. 

There is no doubt that it is this quick, keen sense of 
sympathy with human suffering which helps to impel 
the Emperor to press so earnestly for the adoption of 
measures to stay the ruinous and ever-increasing drain 
of military and naval expenditure. He served as presi- 
dent of the Commission appointed in the last years of 



388 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

his father's reign to fight the famine. Who can mar- 
vel that his heart constantly recoils from the necessity 
of having to expend millions and ever more millions 
on ironclads and munitions of war for the destruction 
of life when he knows all too well the squalid mass of 
human wretchedness which is lying at his door? 

Strange though it may appear to those who have 
always been accustomed to regard Russia and the Tsar- 
dom as synonyms for brutal indifference to human suf- 
fering, the Russian people and the Imperial family 
have ever been distinguished for the intensity with 
which they recoil from the spectacle of pain. The 
only efforts that have been made in this century to 
alleviate the torture of the battlefield were both due 
to the initiative of a Russian Tsar. It was the Em- 
peror's grandfather who summoned the Conference 
that established the Red Cross for the service of the 
wounded, and it was the same man whose initiative 
secured the interdict pronounced by international law 
on the use of explosive bullets in warfare. The pres- 
ent Emperor is of the same way of thinking, and noth- 
ing would please him better if, in addition to its other 
tasks, the forthcoming Conference could still further 
limit the malevolent ingenuity of man in the art of 
human slaughter. 

What English people do not at present realize is that 
the Slav races are far more brotherly than the Western 
nations. " Fraternity," said a Pole to me, " is the 
next great word which the human race has to realize. 
And although I dislike the Russians and detest the 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 389 

way in which they oppress my country, still I admit 
that after the Poles there is no race so brotherly as the 
Russians." I was reminded of this as I was driving 
down from Livadia with General Poushkin, the Com- 
mander of the Russian Army of the South. A com- 
pany of soldiers were drawn up outside the park gates, 
and in response to the General's greeting a long hearty 
response burst from a hundred lips. " Our discipline," 
said the General, " is by no means so severe, and the 
sense of brotherhood is much greater among all ranks 
than in other armies. For instance," he added, " you 
heard me greet my troops." It was the usual greet- 
ing, " Good morning, brothers! " It is the absence of 
that homely heartiness that makes it so difficult for 
Germans and English to get on with Russian work- 
men. The Russian does not understand the putting 
on of " side." British arrogance and aloofness seem 
to him something inhuman. " What is the chief cause 
why the English are so often unpopular? " I once 
asked a Russian friend. " I think," he said, " it is 
chiefly due to the feeling that you all seem to believe 
that God made Englishmen and left the making of 
all other men to some one else." 

It was no doubt this Slavonic spirit of brotherhood 
that caused the Emperor to leave India with feelings 
of anything but admiration for our rule. The Indian 
Empire of course he admired. But what jarred upon 
him most painfully was the abyss which yawned be- 
tween the English in India and the millions whom 
they rule. It may seem strange to some, but it is per- 



390 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

fectly true that the Russians in this respect are far 
more democratic than ourselves. That Anglo-Indians 
should habitually think and act as if they were not 
made of the same flesh and blood as the native races 
seems abhorrent to the Tsar, and to all his subjects. 
There is no such antagonism of race between the 
Russian and the Asiatics whom he rules. It may be 
because the Russian is more Asiatic than the Anglo- 
Saxon. But that is only another way of saying that 
in Asia he is a more brotherly man to the Asiatics than 
is the Englishman. 

For the native races the Tsar has a deep personal 
feeling of sympathy which would entitle him to be 
made an honorary member of the Aborigines Pro- 
tection Society. He is under no illusions as to the 
seamy side of colonial expansion. To the natives it 
seems to him to bring opium, alcohol, foul diseases, 
and all manner of demoralization. Anything further 
removed from the mood of humanitarian Imperialists 
of our day than the bent of the Tsar's mind it would 
be difficult to conceive. He is much more of the cast 
of mind of Mr. Morley than of that of Mr. Chamber- 
lain on this subject. So far from contemplating with 
complacency the partition of China, he regards it 
with positive abhorrence. The occupation of Kiao- 
Chau by the Germans, and what was universally be- 
lieved in Russia to be our fixed design to seize Port 
Arthur, led to the premature occupation of the ice- 
free port and its protecting fortress; but no mistake 
could be greater than to imagine that such a move was 



TEE EMPEROR OF PEACE 391 

regarded by the Emperor as anything but a very re- 
grettable necessity. Certainly if England were to 
adopt a policy of " hands off " for China, no one in all 
Europe would be more entirely in sympathy with such 
a policy than Nicholas II. 

When the present Emperor was a young man on 
his travels he met Lord Roberts, who chaffingly asked 
him when the Russians were coming to take India. 
" Never/' he replied energetically. " I could not con- 
ceive a greater disaster for Russia than that we should 
ever make the attempt." " Oh, you don't expect me 
to believe that ! " persisted Lord Roberts. " Some day 
we shall have to fight you here." " No," replied Nich- 
olas ; " such a thing is altogether outside our ideas. It 
would be madness. Look at the immense distances, 
the enormous difficulties of transport, the loftiest 
mountains in the world to cross — it is impossible." 
" All the same," said Lord Roberts, " you will come 
some day. There is not a village in India where there 
is not to be heard the traditional prophecy that some 
day a white people from the North will conquer 
India." " Then why in the world," retorted the 
young man, " should you not claim that you are the 
white people of the prophecy? You are white, you 
come from the North ; why should you do yourself the 
harm of always assuming that the prophecy is still un- 
fulfilled and that it relates to us? " A very shrewd 
observation, which from so young a man was somewhat 
noteworthy. 

The Emperor is by no means deficient in shrewd- 



392 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

ness. He was talking one day about the difficulty of 
avoiding friction between the interests, real or imag- 
inary, of the Russians and the English. " If only/' 
he exclaimed, " the English could realize how much 
of these dangers they bring upon themselves! They 
go everywhere and find out all manner of places which 
we Russians never heard of, where they imagine that 
if we were so minded we could do them an injury. 
Forthwith they publish in all their papers a cry of 
alarm that we are scheming to do them that injury, 
and they clamor that steps should at once be taken 
to forestall us by seizing it. They keep it up until 
their agitation attracts the attention of those in Russia 
who think that England is our enemy, and that it is 
a patriotic duty to thwart her designs. They then 
get up an agitation in order to make us do what they 
would never have thought of doing if the English 
alarmists had not made them believe it would be a good 
thing to do if we were enemies." Clearly the restless 
spirit of preternatural suspicion sometimes begets its 
own Nemesis. 

There is a vein of quiet humor about the Emperor 
— which is one of the best gifts the gods give to men. 
When he was crowned he had not served long enough 
in the army to attain a higher rank than that of 
colonel. All his predecessors, however, had always 
made themselves generals when they ascended the 
throne. Mcholas II., however, refused. He had 
only a right to a colonel's rank — a colonel he was and 
a colonel he would remain. The Grand Duke Via- 



THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 393 

dimir protested against trie decision with some vehe- 
mence, and was not a little nonplussed when the Em- 
peror silenced him by remarking: "Believe me, dear 
uncle, I am quite capable of looking after my own 
promotion without your needing to take so much 
trouble about it." Of this character at least are some 
of the stories which are told about him in Russia — 
stories which, whether true or false, entirely harmon- 
ize with the estimate that those who know him have 
formed of his character. 

The Emperor has the highest opinion of our Queen 
as the greatest of living " statesmen." To Prince 
LobanofT he was deeply attached, and the sudden death 
of the prince was a great blow to the young Sovereign, 
who felt he had lost a Minister, a mentor, and a friend. 
Prince LobanofT was, however, never able to indoc- 
trinate him with sentiments of hostility to England — 
a country for which he cherishes the kindliest feelings 
of admiration and affection, dashed only by a melan- 
choly regret that his aspirations after closer and friend- 
lier relations should be thwarted by the utterly inex- 
plicable campaign of calumny and misrepresentation 
which is kept up by so many of our papers. There 
was no bitterness, however, in any of his references 
to the Russophobist propaganda — only a somewhat 
pathetic regret that such things should be allowed to 
poison the relations of two nations whose duty and 
interest alike should make them friends. 

Nicholas II. speaks English perfectly, and keeps 
himself au courant with all that goes on here. I was 



394 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

repeatedly surprised at the minuteness and up-to-date- 
ness of his information. "When I mentioned Mr. 
Courtney's speech on the Peace Rescript, I found he 
had read it already, and once when I was telling him 
something I had said, he interrupted me. " Oh, yes! 
I remember reading that in the Review of Reviews " — 
a periodical which I was glad to hear from M. Pobe- 
donostseff, himself a regular reader, was always to be 
found in the Emperor's study. 

Of the Peace Rescript, and of something of the vast 
possibilities that lie behind it, I have spoken elsewhere. 
But it would be wrong to close this somewhat discur- 
sive and imperfect sketch of the Emperor without sav- 
ing how earnestly, nay, how impatiently he longs to 
see the Conference at work. I had ventured to say 
to him that even if nothing else came of it, we were 
all grateful to him for reinforcing the hope of a very 
weary world. " Hope — hope ! " he exclaimed. " I 
am tired of hearing about hope. I want to see some- 
thing practical done! " 

And the vehemence of this little outburst will tend 
still further to reinforce the hope which his Rescript 
has kindled in the heart of the human race. 



PART V 

POSSIBLE OUTCOMES 

CHAPTEE I 

AMERICA AND RUSSIA 

When Sir Eobert Morier, one of the ablest of Brit- 
ish Ambassadors, was transferred from the Court of 
Madrid to the capital of Russia, he remarked on his 
arrival, " I have come from a country which lives in 
the past to a country which lives in the future." Since 
then many years have gone by. Spain has almost used 
up its past in a vain effort to contend with the forces 
of the present, while Russia is exhausting the resources 
of the present in order to be able to cope with the 
immense possibilities of the future. Russia is the 
greatest aggregate of white men ever compacted into 
a state unit since the world began. The English- 
speaking family alone exceeds in numbers the Rus- 
sian, and they know no one political allegiance such as 
that which binds all the Russians to the throne of 
Nicholas II. 

One hundred and twenty-nine millions of men con- 
stitute a world in themselves, large enough to absorb 



396 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

their energies and monopolize their attention. The 
indifference of the Russians to what passes beyond 
their frontiers is phenomenal. Fifteen years ago one 
of the aides-de-camp of the then Emperor falling into 
conversation with an American asked him to what 
country he belonged, and was told America. " Amer- 
ica, America," said the aide-de-camp, " where is Amer- 
ica? " This is of course exceptional in his class, but 
probably a hundred millions of the subjects of the 
Tsar would ask that question in all good faith. Like 
the Chicago bar-tender who was all for taking the 
Philippines, but was bothered by not knowing exactly 
which of the street cable cars would carry him to his 
destination, many of those Russians who have heard of 
America and who hope to go there some day have no 
idea that they must go by sea. Of American politics 
and new departures they necessarily have no notion. 
An American traveller, recently returned from Si- 
beria, gravely assured me that all the war news he 
could find in the Orenburg papers were brief reprints 
of telegrams describing the war which was raging 
between Spain and England ! The Russian peasantry 
are not apt to make fine distinctions. Mankind for 
them, it has been often said, consists only of two great 
divisions — the Russians, or speaking men, and the non- 
Russians, or those who cannot speak. Small wonder 
is it, then, that a remote provincial editor was as un- 
able to distinguish between Americans and English 
as are the Parisian gamins, who, when the tall and 
handsome American naval attache spins down the 



AMERICA AND RUSSIA 397 

Champs Elysees on his high-geared wheel, pursue him 
with cries of " Voild le grand Anglais ! " 

The small but highly cultivated minority which 
forms Russian society, the larger group which forms 
the administration, and the officers of the army and 
of the navy are, of course, keenly alive to the evolution 
of events in America. There is M. PobedonostsefT, 
who is universally regarded as a kind of lay pope and 
persecutor-general throughout Russia. ~No milder- 
mannered man ever closed a conventicle or doomed a 
schismatic to exile. He is keenly alive to the Amer- 
ican evolution or, as he thinks it, degradation. To 
him Boss Croker is a kind of sombre portent of the 
doom that awaits parliamentarism or representative 
government. In his " Reflections of a Russian States- 
man/ 1 which has just made its appearance in English, 
lie expresses profound alarm at the probable (!) tri- 
umph of the Roman Catholic religion in the United 
States. M. Witte, the Minister of Finance, weighed 
down with the difficulties of providing for the military 
and naval horseleech, casts a longing eye at the modest 
war budget of the United States. If peace were but 
secured and armaments reduced, he would have more 
money to spend on the industrial development of Rus- 
sia and Siberia, and he would be the better able to 
attract the money of the capitalists, British and Amer- 
ican, which is so urgently needed to open up her virgin 
resources. Prince KhilkofT (pronounced HilkofT), 
Minister of Ways and Communications, is known as 
the " American." He served his time in an American 



398 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

railway shop, he wears his beard in the traditional 
American fashion, his letters are written on a type- 
writer, and he is simply burning with a desire to repeat 
in Siberia the great industrial development that the 
Americans achieved in the last fifty years west of the 
Mississippi. At the Foreign Office, Count MuraviefT, 
bluff, cynical, Bismarckian in his ambitions, though 
not in his capacity, has kept a careful eye upon the 
development of American ambitions, while scrupu- 
lously preserving the most rigid neutrality during the 
war, with a bias in sentiment towards the United 
States. Great and growing Powers have not much 
sympathy with states that are moribund, and Spain 
had few sympathizers among the Ministers of the 
Tsar. The Spanish war interested them but little. It 
was waged as it were in a distant planet. Astrono- 
mers might watch it, but it was not the business of 
the average man. 

Americans are coining well to the front in Russia, 
as they are discovering more and more what an im- 
mense and undeveloped field the lands of the Tsar offer 
to Western enterprise. Russia is but at the beginning 
of a new epoch of industrial development. Before the 
next century closes she hopes to have achieved a prog- 
ress as great as that which the United States has ac- 
complished in the closing century. ISTo one adequately 
realizes the immense agricultural resources of the vast 
prairie through which the Tsar and Prince Khilkoff 
are running an iron highway eight thousand miles 
long. Americans are supplying at the Asiatic end 



AMERICA AND RUSSIA 399 

the rails: American engineers are everywhere. One 
American is superintending the construction of new 
steel works near St. Petersburg. Bates' dredges are 
to deepen the Volga, the Dniester, the Don, and I 
know not how many Russian rivers besides. The 
representative of Messrs. Worthington is laying down 
two hundred miles of eight-inch piping in the Trans- 
Caspian region, through which the Rothschild Oil 
Combination will pump petroleum by means of four 
pumping stations, all of which will be supplied with 
the latest American pumps. The other day I met an 
American geologist and engineer, who, having quitted 
the post of city engineer in a great American city, 
had been spending the summer examining the gold 
mines of Northern Siberia; and before the day was 
over I stumbled on another who had been reporting 
on copper mines in the Khirgiz steppes. The testi- 
mony of these Americans was favorable to the labor 
value of the Siberian workman. The Russian is do- 
cile, quick to learn, and does quite as good work as 
any but a skilled laborer in the States. As a crafts- 
man he is a past master with his only tool — the axe; 
and my American friends seemed to think that he 
would be equally deft with other tools, if he had the 
training of the skilled artisan. On the other hand, 
another American declared quite as positively that the 
Russians employed in his works work as mechanically 
as the machines they tend. They never make a sug- 
gestion or propose an improvement. Their minds are 
sluggish.; and they are the most conservative of men. 



400 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

There is manifest in certain quarters a suspicion 
that after a time the cordiality of Russian and Amer- 
ican friendship may undergo some little change. The 
American element in the country is as a little yeast 
leavening the Russian mass with American ideas. 
Already Russian workmen here and there have been 
heard to observe that they had no use for a Tsar — 
a phrase which seems almost pure American. ~No 
greater contrast could be conceived than that between 
the feverish, newspaper-lit, electric-driven Democracy 
of the United States and the slow, patriarchal Despot- 
ism of Russia. The mere influx of Americans, bring- 
ing in their train their American mail, is in itself 
breaking down the Chinese wall of archaic censorship. 
Consul-General Holloway, of whom I was delighted 
to receive the best accounts, subscribes regularly to 
nine American newspapers. As the mails do not come 
in every day it is easy to imagine the perplexity of the 
unfortunate Russian censor, who has to examine every 
column of every page of every paper that passes 
through the post. So the censors capitulated, and 
taking refuge gladly in the rule which allows certain 
official personages to receive their papers uncensored, 
they decreed that the Consul-General should receive 
his mail intact. The incident is illustrative of much. 
A thousand Americans scattered up and down Russia 
and Siberia would let in a flood of light into many 
dark places, and help to roll the Tsar's chariot along 
a little more rapidly than it moves at present. 

Another point upon which Russians, or rather some 



AMERICA AND RUSSIA 401 

Russians, see impending danger is the certainty with 
which the American Ambassador at St. Petersburg 
never loses an opportunity of emphasizing that the 
United States will stand no interference with the Open 
Door policy in China. In Mr. Hitchcock — now pro- 
moted to be Secretary of the Interior — the United 
States had been fortunate enough to find a thorough 
business man who had spent years of his life in -the 
Chinese trade. He knows the value of China to 
American commerce, and he had no intention of allow- 
ing any obstacle to be placed in the way of its develop- 
ment. Russia may come to Port Arthur and Talien- 
wan, and welcome, but let her beware of attempting 
to close the door that was opened by the Treaty of 
Tientsin. If she were to try to close it, all the Powers, 
America included, would know the reason why. Mr. 
Hitchcock does not for a moment credit the notion 
that Russia intends to close it. But he is not less confi- 
dent that, even if she did, she would never be allowed 
to do any such thing. This in no way disturbs the 
Government, which is loyal to its treaty obligation, 
but it alarms some of the Chauvinists, to whom the 
thought of a possible Anglo-American combination is 
as the blackness of outer darkness. 

The action taken by the Tsar in summoning a Con- 
ference of all the nations to consider whether anything 
can be done to secure an arrest of armaments affords 
an opportunity for the friends of peace in the United 
States to do a stroke of good business both for the 
cause and for their country. The Tsar has been plenti- 

26 



402 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE 

fully plied with cold douches of scepticism, ridicule, 
and scorn. The diplomatists and the sovereigns and 
the ministers of the Old "World have no faith in the 
humanitarian enthusiasm of the young Emperor. 
Even among his own Ministers there are many who 
have little sympathy with his chivalrous crusade of 
peace. But Xicholas II. means business, and he is 
going through with this business as best he can, with 
such support as he can command. If there be any 
real enthusiasm or humanity anywhere in the Xew 
"World it ought to be easily evoked, and strongly ex- 
pressed in support of his valorous declaration of war 
against the ruinous armaments of the modern world. 
Of one thing all Americans may be sure. The more 
enthusiastically they make manifest and effective their 
response to the appeal of the young Emperor the better 
it will be for the future relations of the two countries. 
The United States, after the Russian Empire, is the 
greatest human aggregate that will be represented at 
the Conference. If the American delegate is well 
chosen, and he is backed by the hearty and visible 
manifestation of popular support, the Xew World may 
even sooner than was anticipated wield a dominating 
influence in the decisions of the Areopagus of Europe. 
Before setting out on my tour of observation and 
interrogation I had the advantage of discussing the 
subject with the present Secretary of State in Presi- 
dent McKinley's Cabinet, and since then I have en- 
joyed exceptional opportunities of ascertaining the 
views of American statesmen and diplomatists on the 



AMERICA AND RUSSIA 403 

subject of the proposed Conference on disarmament. 
The Hotel Continental last winter in Paris was virtu- 
ally a semi-detached annex of the Capitol at Washing- 
ton. It was the headquarters of the Peace Commis- 
sioners, who were specially appointed by the President 
to represent the Government of the United States in 
the one supreme question of foreign policy before the 
citizens of the Republic. Together with the personnel 
of the Exhibition Commission, which was also located 
in the Continental, the American element was so 
strongly represented that anyone sojourning at the 
hotel might easily have imagined himself in Chicago 
or New York. Besides the Peace Commissioners, 
who included in their number Mr. Judge Day, late 
Secretary of State at Washington, and Mr. Whitelaw 
Reid, former Ambassador at Paris, and late special 
representative of the United States at the Queen's 
Jubilee, there were at Paris during my sojourn in that 
city General Draper, the American Ambassador to 
Italy, and Mr. Straus, the American Minister to Tur- 
key. As I have also seen the American Ambassadors 
in Germany and in Russia, the American Ministers in 
Vienna and Constantinople, I probably had better op- 
portunities than if I had gone to Washington of ascer- 
taining the opinion of the best American authorities 
upon the attitude of the United States in relation to 
the Tsar's proposals. 

President McKinley received the Tsar's invitation 
while he was preoccupied in completing the arrange- 
ments for the dispatch of the Peace Commissioners. 



404 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

The task of making a definite treaty of peace with 
Spain naturally took precedence in his Cabinet of the 
wider question raised by the Russian Rescript. His 
reply was, however, immediate and emphatic. He 
welcomed the Imperial proposals, expressed hearty 
sympathy with their object, and announced his inten- 
tion to appoint a delegate when the time came for the 
Conference to assemble. Having thns dispatched that 
business, the President returned to the more pressing 
question of instructing his Commissioners as to the 
terms on which peace should be made with Spain. 

In the press of the United States, with few excep- 
tions, there was a general chorus of acclamation. As 
one of the ablest members of the staff of the Peace 
Commission expressed it, " The Message passed over 
the whole country like a great wave of healing balm." 
Here and there among the more aggressive advocates 
of expansion there were semi-audible murmurs of re- 
sentment at the Tsar's suggestion, as if the autocrat 
of the Old World were guilty of an impertinence in 
suggesting to the New World that excessive expendi- 
ture on armies and navies was an evil to be shunned 
rather than a boon to be welcomed; but these remon- 
strances only tended to bring into clearer relief the 
national complacency with which Americans received 
the Rescript. " The Tsar," they said, " has at last 
recognized the soundness of the principles upon which 
Americans have been acting all these years. He may 
preach disarmament now, and he does well. But we 
have practised it all our lives. The greatest disarma- 



AMERICA AND RUSSIA 405 

ment ever seen in the world's history took place at the 
close of the Civil War, when a million veterans laid 
down their arms and resumed their peaceful avoca- 
tions. The doctrine of the Rescript is sound Ameri- 
canism. Who would not rejoice to find American 
principles, in making the tour of the world, have even 
converted the Imperial Master of the largest army ever 
organized by man % " 

The American Peace Commissioners, like the nation 
which they represent, were by no means disposed to 
take a cynical or pessimist view of the famous Re- 
script. One of these, who was consulted by President 
McKinley on the day the Rescript arrived at Washing- 
ton, told me that he had advised the President to back 
it up enthusiastically. " That is what I intend to do," 
he said was Mr. McKinley's answer. As President 
McKinley reminded Count Cassini when that eminent 
diplomatist presented his credentials at Washington, 
" Cordial esteem and unbroken friendship have ever 
subsisted between Russia and the United States." It 
is, indeed, a consoling thought that one great sec- 
tion of the English-speaking family has ever kept it- 
self free from the delirium of Russophobia which has 
so often played such havoc with the wits of the older 
branch. 

As for the practical good that may come out of it, 
the Americans are much more sanguine than the 
French or the Germans. As Senator Davis, one of 
the Peace Commissioners now at Paris, remarked, " I 
should not be at all surprised if very material good 



406 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

came out of it. It might not result in the reduction 
of standing armies, but it would be a step towards that 
goal, and it might have side results which would be of 
the greatest value." 

But when from discussing the Tsar's proposals as 
they relate to other nations, Americans pass to discuss 
them as affecting themselves, there is an almost unani- 
mous opinion that they don't apply. " They don't 
concern us," they say. " We are disarmed already. 
"We should need to multiply our standing army 
straightaway tenfold before we could even begin to 
come within the range of a disarmament proposition." 

This is reasonable enough from one point of view. 
The standing army of the United States, as Mr. Secre- 
tary Hay pointed out, is not a standing army in the 
European sense at all. It is a mere frontier police, 
and miserably inadequate even at that. Twenty-four 
thousand armed men as the military quota of a nation 
of eighty million — to talk about disarmament under 
such circumstances is absurd. The United States, if 
the Conference had been summoned before the recent 
war, might fairly have entered the International Par- 
liament as the only Power without an army in the 
world. 

But the Conference proposal did not precede the 
war. It followed it, and may possibly have been sug- 
gested by it. On this point there are at least three 
different opinions. One is that the extraordinary and 
startling ease with which the Americans destroyed the 
power of Spain suggested to the Tsar the possibility 



AMERICA AND RUSSIA 407 

that other nations might be tempted to think lightly 
of the terrible contingency of war, and so led him to 
take the field on behalf of peace. A second is that the 
Tsar feared the impetus which the war might give to 
the armaments of the United States, which would of 
course immediately lead to an increase of other armies 
and navies. The third — a notion more American 
than European — is that as the Americans have shown 
wars can be waged and won without huge standing 
armies, the Tsar thought Europe might at any rate 
reduce the burden of its armaments, and rely more 
upon American methods in the future. We need not 
attach much importance to any or to all of these sur- 
mises, but merely content ourselves with noting that 
as a matter of fact the proposal for a conference finds 
the United States at the beginning of a vast increase 
of its army and its navy. 

It is only right to say that this, which seems to 
European observers as absolutely inevitable as the re- 
sult of the American annexations, or virtual annexa- 
tions, is by no means accepted as a settled thing by 
some of the soberest and most experienced of Amer- 
ican statesmen. I confess that I have been amazed 
by the resolute scepticism expressed in many quarters 
as to the certainty of an immense increase in the 
American war budget. " Do not be so confident," I 
have been told again and again, " that we are going 
to build a gigantic navy, and still less that we are going 
to raise a great standing army. The sober second 
thoughts of the American nation will decide that 



408 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

question, and the last word has by no means been 
spoken." 

How it will be possible to restore order in Cuba, to 
say nothing of the Philippines, without a standing 
army four or five times as large as that which existed 
before the war, is not apparent, but that does not con- 
cern these optimists. Even if, as one American officer 
assured me, they have to maintain an army of 75,000 
men in Cuba for five years, before they can restore 
order and make the insurgents refrain from looting 
and brigandage, at the end of five years the army 
can be disbanded, as the Grand Army of the Republic 
was disbanded at the close of the Civil War. The 
idea of a large standing army is repugnant to the best 
men in the United States. And here it may be noted 
as by no means one of the least of the many advantages 
resulting from the Imperial Rescript, the powerful 
influence which it is undoubtedly exerting in the crys- 
tallization of American opinion upon the burning 
question of expansion over sea. As Mr. Cleveland 
reminded his fellow-citizens last June, " Never before 
in our history have we been beset with temptations so 
dangerous as those which now whisper in our ears al- 
luring words of conquests and expansion, and point out 
to us fields bright with the glory of war." It is a 
grave question, he added, " whether the cheapening of 
our estimate of the value of peace, by dwelling upon 
war and warlike preparation, is calculated to improve 
the quality of our national character." But the ex- 
President is a " back number " and a Democrat, and 



AMERICA AND RUSSIA 409 

his warning words were discounted. It is altogether 
another matter when the War Lord of the Old "World, 
America's friend and ally, takes up the parable and 
repeats in the ears of every citizen of the Great Repub- 
lic the solemn warning as to the ultimate result of that 
policy of armaments on the verge of which the United 
States appears to be hesitating. 

Before the war the estimates for the army of the 
United States for 1898 figure in the returns as £12,- 
000,000. But nearly £3,000,000 of this was spent in 
improving harbors and rivers, an expenditure entered 
under the Military Department, but which is obviously 
no part of a war budget. By Acts of Congress, it 
was strictly laid down that there shall be no more than 
25,000 enlisted men at any one time in the American 
Republic. This was the figure fixed in 1875, and 
although the population has nearly doubled since then, 
the quota remained fixed as in 1875 down to the out- 
break of the present war. It is obvious that with 
25,000 men it will be impossible to hold Porto Rico, 
police Cuba, and conquer the Philippines. The 
Americans must immediately, even although it may 
be temporarily, increase their army. This, however, 
will in no way jeopardize the one practical proposal 
that seems likely to emanate from the Conference — 
the calling of a halt to increased armaments, or the 
stereotyping of the status quo for a term of five years. 
Tor the military status quo in the United States at 
present is not the status quo ante helium, but the 
status quo of to-day. President McKinley might 



410 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

safely agree not to increase the American army beyond 
the figure at which it was standing at the moment the 
Tsar's proposal reached him. It is, indeed, safe to 
say that his is the only Government in the world which 
will actually disband a considerable proportion of its 
armed forces before the end of the century. 

The question of the navy is more serious. As a 
military Power, the United States can honestly claim 
that it has set an example to the Old World. As a 
naval Power it seems to be following as fast as possible 
in the steps of the European nations. Its naval ex- 
penditure, as estimated for 1898, before the war, was 
£6,800,000. This was the largest of any nation ex- 
cepting Britain, France, and Russia. It is now to be 
increased, possibly enormously increased, so as to 
bring it up almost to the level of the expenditure of 
France. " We want a mighty navy," thunders the 
New Yorh Journal, " to protect us from attack and to 
enforce respect for the Monroe doctrine on the part 
of the land-stealing, colonizing monarchies of Eu- 
rope." Three first-class battleships have been ordered, 
more are to follow. Where is it to stop? 



CHAPTEE II 



CONSTANTINOPLE 



Judged by results, the Spanish war has made mighty 
little return for a prodigious expenditure compared 
with the returns already realized and to be realized 
from the peaceful campaign which America is waging 
in the Ottoman Empire. By an expenditure of hun- 
dreds of millions of dollars and the sacrifice of over 
2,000 men the United States has succeeded in ousting 
the moribund sovereignty of Spain from a couple of 
islands near her own shores and of securing the right 
to shoulder " the white man's burden " in the Philip- 
pines. The results achieved, small though they be, 
represent probably the best and quickest dividend ever 
earned by modern war. 

Compare this result with those achieved by the 
Americans who for the last thirty years have been 
patiently, silently laboring for the regeneration of that 
vast compost of wrecked kingdoms, principalities and 
nationalities called the Ottoman Empire. Thirty 
years ago a couple of Americans, Christian men, with 
heads on their shoulders, settled in Turkey and set 
about teaching on American methods the rising youth 
of the East in an institution called the Robert College. 



412 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

They have never from that day to this had at their 
command a greater income than 30,000 or 40,000 dol- 
lars a year. They have taken no hand in politics. 
They have abstained from identifying themselves with 
any sect, nationality or party. They have stuck to 
their appointed task, and they are still sticking. They 
have insisted that every student within their walls 
shall be thoroughly trained on the American prin- 
ciples, which, since they were imported by the men 
of the Mayflower, have well-nigh made the tonr of the 
world. They taught all these students five languages, 
but they never hesitated to proclaim that, though they 
spoke with all the tongues under heaven, it was but 
foolishness unless the moral and spiritual character of 
the student was trained and moulded by religious men. 
Moral development, spiritual discipline, is the most 
essential part of education. The object of college edu- 
cation is the development of the faculties and the for- 
mation of character. That was their line, and they 
have stuck to it now for thirty-four years. 

With what result? That American college is to- 
day the chief hope of the future of the millions who 
inhabit the Sultan's dominions. They have 200 stu- 
dents in the college to-day, but they have trained and 
sent out into the world thousands of bright, brainy 
young fellows, who have carried the leaven of the 
American town meeting into all provinces of the Otto- 
man Empire. Robert College men are turning up 
everywhere. If the good work goes on the alumni of 
this American institution will be able to supply the 



CONSTANTINOPLE 413 

personnel of the civilized administration which must 
some day supersede the barbaric horror that is at 
present misnamed the Government of Turkey. 

The one great thing done in the making of States 
in the last quarter of the century was the creation of 
the Bulgarian Principality. But the Bulgarian Prin- 
cipality, the resurrection of the Bulgarian nationality, 
although materially achieved by the sword of the 
liberating and avenging hordes of Russia, was due 
primarily to the Robert College. It was the Amer- 
icans who sowed the seed. It was the men of Robert 
College who took into Bulgaria the glad news of a 
good time coming when Bulgaria would be free. 
When the Turks, scared by the propaganda of liberty, 
descended in savage wrath upon the helpless people, 
with sword and flame and worse than bestial lusts, to 
eradicate the new-born national aspirations, it was the 
Americans who brought the whole horrible truth to 
the light of day. Mr. Disraeli, then Premier of Eng- 
land, lied about it in his place in Parliament, not even 
scrupling to falsify dispatches and betray the confi- 
dence of Parliament in order to shield the Turk. All 
was in vain: Robert College men were on the spot. 
Their chief was in constant communication with the 
Ambassadors and journalists of Constantinople. They 
found in Mr. Pears, an English barrister of high stand- 
ing, a correspondent of the Daily News, a man fearless 
and capable enough to stand the brunt of making the 
awful exposure. "What followed is a matter of history. 
The revelation of the truth about the Bulgarian mas- 



414 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

sacres shattered as by dynamite the traditional policy 
of England. Mr. Gladstone sprang into the field. 
The Russian people, moved to its depth by the stories 
of the sufferings of their brethren, could not be re- 
strained. The Tsar-liberator carried the Russian army 
in triumph to the very gates of Stamboul. Nor did 
they return till by the Treaty of San Stefano they had 
created that Bulgarian Principality which had been 
dreamed out on the astral plane by the students of the 
American college. 

When the Russian army of liberation returned 
home after the peace was signed, they passed down 
the Bosphorus, and as each huge transport, crowded 
with the war-worn veterans of the Balkan battlefields, 
steamed past the picturesque Crag of Roumeli Hissar, 
on which the Robert College sits enthroned, they one 
and all did homage to the institution which had made 
Bulgaria possible, by cheering lustily and causing the 
military bands to play American airs. It was the 
tribute of the artificer in blood and iron to the archi- 
tects on whose designs they had builded the Bulgarian 
State. 

But the influence of the American college did not 
stop there. When the Constitutional Assembly met 
at Tirnova to frame the constitution for the new-born 
state, it was the Robert College graduate who suc- 
ceeded in giving the new constitution its extreme 
democratic character, and when, after the Russians 
left, the Bulgarians began to do their own governing, 
it was again the American-trained men who displayed 




M. GEVESHOFF 

A prominent member of the Bulgarian Sobranie 



PRINCE FERDINAND 

of Bulgaria 




M. ZANKOFF 

One of the chief workers for Bulgarian Inde- 
pendence in 1878 




DR. YANKOLOFF 

President of the Bulgarian Sobranie 



CONSTANTINOPLE 415 

the spirit of independence which baffled and angered 
the Russian Generals. From that time to this day 
the Robert College has been a nursery for Bulgarian 
statesmen. One Kobert College man, when I visited 
Sofia, was Prime Minister of Bulgaria and another 
was Bulgarian Minister at Constantinople, while a 
third, one of the ablest of them, was Bulgarian Min- 
ister at Athens. So marked indeed has been the in- 
fluence of this one institution, there are some who say 
that of all the results of the Crimean War nothing was 
of such permanent importance as the one fact that it 
attracted to Constantinople a plain American citizen 
from New York. 

The influence of the United States in the East is 
by no means confined to Robert College. There are 
other institutions founded by Americans at Constanti- 
nople which are working quite as well as the Robert 
College; but as they educate girls instead of boys, they 
will not make their political influence felt until the 
sons of the students come to man's estate. But it is 
not only at Constantinople Americans are at work. 
They are at the present moment almost the only people 
who are doing any good for humanity in Asiatic 
Turkey. 

The German Emperor, who has fraternized with the 
Assassin and walked arm-in-arm with the Infidel, has 
proclaimed his divine mission to protect the Christians 
of the East, whom his friend and host has been massa- 
cring by the thousand for the last four years. But the 
only protection the poor unfortunate Christians receive 



416 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

is from English-speaking men. I grieve to say it, but 
it is for the most part quite true that until the other day 
England did no good to any one in Asia Minor. Of 
late the English people have wakened up and are now 
sending scores of thousands of pounds in charity to 
that country. But the only real good which the Eng- 
lish did in these regions for many years was confined 
to this — the British consuls helped the American mis- 
sionaries when they got into difficulty. People speak 
as if the Anglo-American alliance was a peaceful 
dream to be realized in the remote future. If they 
lived in Asia Minor they would discover that it is a 
very practical working factor in the daily life of mil- 
lions of men. How many American citizens are 
aware, I wonder, that from the slopes of Mount Ararat 
all the way to the shores of the blue zEgean Sea Amer- 
ican missionaries have scattered broadcast over all the 
distressful land the seed of American principles? The 
Russians know it, and regard the fact with anything 
but complacency. When General MosellofT, the di- 
rector of the foreign faiths within the Russian Empire, 
visited Etchmiadzin, in the confines of Turkish Ar- 
menia, the Armenian patriarch spread before him a 
map of Asia Minor which was marked all over with 
American colleges, American churches, American 
schools and American missions. They are busy every- 
where, teaching, preaching, begetting new life in these 
Asiatic races. They stick to their Bible and their 
spelling-book, but every year an increasing number 
of Armenians and other Orientals issue from the 



CONSTANTINOPLE 417 

American schools familiar with the principles of the 
Declaration of Independence and the fundamental 
doctrines of the American Constitution. And so the 
leaven is spreading throughout the whole land. 

Of course, such new wine cannot be poured into 
the very old bottles of the Turkish provinces without 
making itself felt. The Armenians, a thrifty and 
studious race, soon became " swell-headed." What 
Bulgarians had done they thought Armenians could 
do. As the Robert College men had created an in- 
dependent Bulgaria, they, in turn, would show that 
they could create an independent Armenia. So they 
set to work; but, alas! though they did their part of 
the work bravely enough, Russia, this time, was in no 
mood to come to their rescue. So the Sultan fell upon 
them in his wrath and delivered them over to the 
Bashi-Bazouk and the Kurd. What followed is writ- 
ten in letters of blood and fire across the recent history 
of the East. 

But the end is not yet. The American missionaries, 
who took no part in the abortive insurrection, were not 
as a rule much molested. They are working on, teach- 
ing, preaching, sowing the seed day by day, creating 
the forces which will in time overturn the Turkish 
government and regenerate Armenia. The Turk 
knows it, and is longing for the time when he may 
have it out with the giaour from beyond the sea. But 
behind the American missionary stands the British 
consul, and the Sultan fears to give the signal for extir- 
pation. Even as it is, the American missionaries have 

27 



418 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

not come off scot-free. Oscar Straus, the American 
Minister, lias to collect some 100,000 dols. due as com- 
pensation for the destruction of American property 
during the recent troubles. The money is yet to be 
paid. It cost the Sultan 3,000,000 dols. to entertain 
his friend the Kaiser. How can he spare 100,000 
to compensate the pestilent American? 

When I was in Constantinople, Mr. Straus had not 
yet presented his little bill, but he was looking forward 
with considerable interest to the opportunity of having 
a plain straight talk with the Padishah, and explaining 
to him the ruin which would inevitably overwhelm 
the Ottoman Empire if he persisted in his present evil 
ways, and particularly if he failed to compensate the 
American Government for the destruction of the 
property of American subjects, who were laboring in 
a mission of mercy and education among his people. 
Since I returned home I have seen statements in news- 
papers to the effect that the Sultan has refused to pay 
the money, the reason no doubt being that, for the 
moment, he has no spare cash in the Treasury, and that 
his officials are going unpaid. This brings up an in- 
teresting question. At present, the Americans are 
preoccupied with the task of providing for the future 
of the Philippines; and being concerned with the ques- 
tion whether they shall not embark upon a policy of 
Imperial adventure in Eastern Asia, they turn a deaf 
ear to all talk about their responsibilities at the West 
of the same Continent. Nevertheless, there are few 
things more probable than that it may be reserved to 



CONSTANTINOPLE 419 

the United States to achieve results in the near East 
far greater even than those which Admiral Dewey ef- 
fected when he destroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila. 
I do not suppose that the difficulty will come to a head 
over the mere claim for compensation for the destruc- 
tion of missionary buildings. Sooner or later the 
Turk would pay. Damages which can be assessed in 
dollars can be settled with dollars, and it will not be 
for a mere money claim that the Sultan will disappear 
from the Bosphorus. What is likely to happen is far 
more serious. Long ago, when I was a boy, I remem- 
ber being much impressed with a passage in Cobden's 
political writings, in which, after describing the deso- 
lation that prevailed in the Garden of the East owing 
to the desolating despotism of the Turks, he asked 
whether it would not be enormously for the benefit of 
the world in general, and of British trade in particular, 
if the whole of the region now blighted by the presence 
of the Turk could be handed over to an American 
syndicate or company of New England merchants, who 
would be entrusted with the administration of the 
country, with instructions to run it on business prin- 
ciples. " Who can doubt," said the great free-trader, 
" that if such an arrangement could be made, before 
long the desert would blossom as a rose? Great cen- 
tres of busy industry would arise in territories that 
were at one time the granary and treasury of the 
world." This beatific vision of Manchester-thum has 
never ceased to haunt my memory. But until recent 
times, I have never seen how this excellent American 



420 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

syndicate was to get Turkey into its pocket. Gradu- 
ally, however, with the decay of Turkish authority, 
with the expansion of American ambitions, and above 
all, with the development of the American fleet, Cob- 
den's dream seems to me to be in a fair way of being 
realized. 

When I was in Paris, Senator Frye reminded me 
that he had done his utmost at Washington, two years 
ago, in order to induce the American Government to 
send some warships to Constantinople for the purpose 
of supporting the representations of the other Powers 
concerning the Armenian atrocities. He failed, and 
it is now only a matter for ingenious speculation 
whether, if Senator Frye's project had been put 
through, the advent of a strong American fleet in the 
Mediterranean might not have rendered the Spanish 
war unnecessary. Certainly, such a demonstration of 
American naval strength could hardly have failed to 
have impressed profoundly the imagination of Europe ; 
and Spain might have thought twice, and even thrice, 
before resisting the demands for the pacification of 
Cuba. The Americans have never recognized the 
right of the Turk to close the Sea of Marmora or the 
Black Sea to their fighting ships. They hold that 
they have the right of navigating all open seas, and 
they deny that the Turks have any right whatever to 
apply the principle of the mare clausum to the Sea of 
Marmora. Senator Frye made a good fight in 1896 
for intervention on behalf of the Armenians, and he 
was supported by a large and very influential section 



CONSTANTINOPLE 421 

of the American people. Indeed, it is simply true 
that a part of the agitation in favor of the liberation 
of Cuba was really due to the determination of some 
of the Americans to agitate for American intervention 
in Turkey. One of the most zealous and public- 
spirited of men, whose writings in favor of the Ar- 
menians and of the Cubans have been circulated in 
innumerable newspapers from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, told me quite frankly that he had gone into 
the Cuban business in order to familiarize the Amer- 
ican mind with the idea of the liberation of oppressed 
nationalities. " When I found/' he said, " that I 
could no longer obtain a hearing for my demands for 
intervention in Armenia, I took up the cause of Cuba, 
and wrote voluminously, wherever I could get a hear- 
ing, in favor of intervention in behalf of the victims 
of Spanish tyranny; but all the while I had in my mind 
the cause of Armenia. The principles were the same ; 
the need was even greater in Armenia than in Cuba, 
only in Cuba we had the power and the obligation to 
intervene single-handed. Therefore, I thought, if we 
made a beginning with Cuba, we would have estab- 
lished the stepping-stone from which we could pass 
over into Turkey." My friend wrote me as soon as 
the treaty of peace was signed an enthusiastic letter, 
and said, " By the grace of God the horrible tyranny of 
Spain has been cleared out of Cuba and Porto Pico, 
and I hope from the Philippines. Now for Armenia." 
The American Republic has been too much ab- 
sorbed in the discussion of the responsibilities which 



422 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

she has newly acquired in the Philippines to bestow 
any attention upon the fate of the Ottoman Empire. 
But there is no doubt at all that the situation is much 
more serious for Turkey than it was before the United 
States had proved by the actual test of experience the 
efficiency of their fleet as a fighting machine. 

It is unnecessary to add anything to what has been 
said in the foregoing pages to show that the Turk has 
good cause enough to regard with misgivings, to put 
it mildly, the work of American missionaries in the 
Ottoman Empire. I can never forget the intense 
vehemence with which a friend of the Sultan, him- 
self, I regret to say, an American by birth, expressed 
his sentiments. I had remarked that I did not believe 
the Eastern Question would ever be settled until the 
Turks impaled an American missionary. The vehe- 
mence with which he blurted out, " I entirely agree 
with you," let in a ray of vivid light upon the senti- 
ments prevailing in the Yildiz Kiosk. If this man 
who, although a Philo-Turk, was nevertheless an 
American, and in some ways a representative Amer- 
ican, could give such heart-felt expression to a longing 
desire for vengeance on the American missionary, it is 
easy to imagine with what sentiments these excellent 
citizens of the Republic are regarded by the Padishah. 
But, of course, when I spoke of the impalement of an 
American being the solution of the Eastern Question, 
I meant it in a sense entirely different from that in 
which he had responded. It seems to me the most 
natural thing in the world that some fine day there 



CONSTANTINOPLE 423 

will be one of those savage outbreaks of religious or 
imperial fanaticism which will lead some unhanged 
ruffian who has been decorated by the Sultan, or some 
Kurdish chief, to take it into his head to avenge the 
wrongs of Islam on the nearest American mission sta- 
tion. He will sweep down at the head of his troops 
upon a school or manse. The building will be given 
to the flames, the American missionary will be flung 
into the burning building to perish in the fire, while 
his wife and daughters will be carried off to the 
harem of the pasha. Nothing could be more natu- 
ral or more in accordance with the ordinary prac- 
tice in these savage regions. There is no available 
force to defend the American settlers from their assail- 
ants. In these remote regions it is often possible to 
conceal a crime for months by the very completeness 
with which the victims have been extirpated. But, of 
course, after a time, whether it be weeks or whether it 
be months, the fate of that mission station would be 
known. The story of the great massacre, when the 
missionary was burned alive in his own flaming school- 
house, would leak out, and then, in the natural course 
of things, some enterprising newspaper man would 
make his way to the scene of the outrage, would verify 
the facts, would ascertain the whereabouts of the un- 
fortunate American women, and possibly return to the 
outside world bearing with him a pathetic and urgent 
appeal from the captives for rescue from the Turkish 
harem. 
This outrage, after all, is nothing more than the kind 



424 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

of things to which the Christian races of the East have 
had to submit from generation to generation. Their 
victims have been as white, as Christian, and as 
wretched as those whose imaginary doom at the hands 
of the Turk or Kurd I have been describing. But in 
the latter case the girls, with their devoted mother, 
who have been subjected to the worst outrage at the 
hands of their captors, would differ from the Arme- 
nians in that they speak English. That one difference 
would be vital. On the day on which that smart 
newsj:>aper man wrote out his story of the fate of those 
American women — wrote it out in vivid characters, 
bright and clear before the eyes of the whole English- 
speaking race — the doom of the Ottoman Empire 
would be sealed. 

There are eighty millions of human beings in the 
United States, all of whom speak English, and each 
one of whom would feel that the imprisoned women 
were even as his own sisters. On the day on which the 
news of their incarceration and outrage reached the 
Christian Republic of the West, the whole of the 
eighty millions who inhabit the invulnerable fortress 
which Mature has established between the fosses of 
the Atlantic and the Pacific would start to their feet 
as one man, and from the whole continent would rise 
but one question and one imperative command. The 
question would be: "Where is Dewey? Where is 
Sampson? Where are our invincible ironclads, which 
in two battles swept the flag of Spain from the seas? 
Why are our great captains roosting round upon their 



CONSTANTINOPLE 425 

battle-ships, while such horrors are inflicted upon 
women from America?" And after that inquiry 
would come quick and sharp the imperious mandate: 
"To the Dardanelles! To the Dardanelles! " 

In three weeks the commanders who shattered the 
Spanish fleet at Manila, and drove the ironclads of 
Admiral Cervera in blazing ruin upon the coast of 
Cuba, would appear off the Dardanelles to exact in- 
stant and condign punishment for the outrage inflicted 
upon their country-folk. 

JSTor would they stop at the Dardanelles. The Stars 
and Stripes would soon fly over the waters of the Sea 
of Marmora, and the thunder of the American guns 
would sound the funeral peal of the Ottoman dynasty. 
No power on earth would be able to arrest the advance 
of the American ships, nor, indeed, is there any Power 
in Europe that would even attempt to do so. The 
patience of Christendom has long been almost worn 
out, and Europe would probably maintain an expectant 
attitude while the death-blow was struck at the 
crumbling relics of the Ottoman Power. 

When the Sultan had fled from Stamboul, leaving 
his capital to the violence of the mob, the Americans, 
to save Constantinople from the fate of Alexandria, 
would be compelled to occupy the city of Constantine, 
and, as our experience has long shown, it is much easier 
to occupy than it is to evacuate. "When once " Old 
Glory " was hoisted over the city of Stamboul, who 
could say when it would be hauled down? Of course, 
the Americans would protest that they had no inten- 



426 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

tion of remaining there, but the necessity of postpon- 
ing the European war, which would probably break 
out when the key of the Dardanelles and of the Bos- 
phorus came to be scrambled for, would compel them 
to remain at least for a time, and every day that the 
Stars and Stripes flew over the gates of the Euxine 
would tend to familiarize Europe with the idea that, 
of all possible solutions, the indefinite occupation of 
Constantinople by the Americans might be open to 
fewer objections than any other conceivable solution. 
Thus, at any moment, owing to what may be regarded 
as a normal incident in the methods of Ottoman mis- 
rule, Cobden's dream might be fulfilled, and the great 
Republic of the West become the agent for restoring 
prosperity and peace to the desolated East. 

The following special telegram from Washington in the 
New York World of August 9, 1898, is an interesting confirma- 
tion of the views set forth above. It is headed " We may 
Bombard Constantinople," and it runs thus: "Minister 
Angell was appointed by President McKinley with the sole 
object of having him force the Sultan to pay the claims of 
the missionaries. It was the intention of the President to 
even go to the extent of making a naval demonstration be- 
fore Constantinople to force compliance with his demands. 
Immediately after Minister Angell's arrival in Turkey the 
navy of the United States was being rendezvoused in Eastern 
waters for the purpose of permitting the American Minister 
to enforce his demands. While this movement was in 
progress the Cuban situation became acute, and the con- 
templated demonstration was postponed until a more aus- 
picious period. Minister Angell frankly informed the Porte 
that unless the claims were paid the United States would 
endeavor to force payment. He was also told of the con- 
templated demonstration and the cause of its postponement. 



CONSTANTINOPLE 427 

The Sultan then promised to see that the claims were paid. 
The matter has been in this shape for months. The bulk 
of the property destroyed consisted of mission buildings, and 
there has been a powerful influence at work to secure just 
compensation. It is now said that unless the claims are paid 
by Turkey a naval demonstration will be made against the 
Ottoman Empire just as soon as the exigencies of the pres- 
ent war will permit. Admiral Sampson, who will be in com- 
mand of the European squadron, which is to be formed after 
the beginning of peace negotiations, will be sent to Con- 
stantinople to intimidate the Turks." 



CHAPTEK III 

FROM THE CAPITAL OP THE OLD WORLD 

The King of Italy opened the Italian Parliament 
on November 17th. Inside the Chamber, originally 
bnilt for the Curia Innocenziana, or Papal Tribunal, 
but which for twenty-eight years has been the Cham- 
ber of Deputies of United Italy, the scene was much 
the same as that which is witnessed at the opening of 
all Parliaments. It was much more picturesque out- 
side. Italy may be reducing its finances to bank- 
ruptcy by playing too boldly the beggar-my-neighbor 
policy of all modern states, but not even bankruptcy 
can dim the glorious blue of the Italian sky. We are 
here, in mid-Xovember, with the delightful climate of 
an English June at its best. Such skies lend them- 
selves naturally to outdoor pageants. Although the 
ceremony was of the simplest, it had a brightness and 
a splendor which we never can hope to rival under our 
English clouds. 

The balcony of my hotel looked out over the sanded 
square within which, from as early as nine o'clock, 
deputies and diplomatists began to alight from their 
carriages. A double row of mounted men guarded 
the approach, the bright red roll of their overcoats 




//. k Lieure, Bonn 
MARQUIS DI RUDINI 

Italian Premier in 1898 



Giacomo Btogi, Florence 
KING HUMBERT T. OF ITALY 




SIGN OR SONNIKO 
(See page 17) 



GENERAL W. F. DRAPER 
U. S. Ambassador at Rome 



FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE OLD WORLD 429 

folded behind their saddles forming a double ribbon 
of color across the street above the heads of the small 
crowd, many members of which crouched down on the 
pavement to watch the arrivals through the horses' 
legs. The square was lined by troops with different 
uniforms. At one corner a military band played lively 
music, which from time to time was drowned by the 
harsh clangor of the great bell, whose peal from the 
belfry overhead added more to the tumult than the 
harmony of the occasion. After a time the state car- 
riages began to arrive, the state coaches of the Senate 
leading the way, followed after an interval by the 
gorgeous carriages of the Court. The liveries were 
splendid, the costumes of the Court ladies not less so, 
and when the carriage of the King drove up with its six 
horses and a single postillion, nothing could have been 
better from a scenic point of view. The King looked 
hale and robust, although his hair is whitening, nor 
was there any lack of vigor in his step. But to an 
English observer whose last experience of a Royal 
ceremonial was the great Jubilee of our Queen, there 
was a very painful absence of any demonstrations of 
public enthusiasm. What a contrast to the league- 
long roar of cheering which rolled from Buckingham 
Palace to St. Paul's, and from St. Paul's through 
Southwark to the Palace, in the sombre silence of the 
small crowd which gazed with curiosity at the passing 
pageant! Not an Evviva did I hear. Only a few 
raised their hats. If I had been the King I would 
willingly have exchanged even the marvellous Italian 



430 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

sky for one right good hearty English cheer. But 
there are some things which even monarchs cannot 
command. 

The Speech from the Throne was portentously long, 
and except for one or two passages, not particularly 
interesting. The reference to the Peace Conference 
was studiously curt, and it w T as much more than coun- 
terbalanced by the emphatic declarations that the Gov- 
ernment, which has a General as Prime Minister and 
an Admiral at the Foreign Office, intends to continue 
to spend more money, and ever more money, upon the 
fleet to keep pace with the preparations of its neighbors. 
The Power nearest bankruptcy in Europe is perhaps 
bound to keep up the game of bluff to the end. But 
it is sufficiently evident that at the Quirinal there is 
no very hearty support of the peaceful initiative of 
the Tsar. The Pope, on the other hand, is most en- 
thusiastic. Everything that the Holy See can do to 
help the Tsar to make the Conference a success will 
be done. That, perhaps, is sufficient to account for 
the coldness of the Quirinal. Eor in this unhappy 
city whatever the Blacks approve is damned by the 
Whites and vice versa,. 

Perhaps the most interesting sight in yesterday's 
spectacle was the march of the Bersaglieri through 
the streets. Those who have never seen the Bersagli- 
eri tripping along — there is no other word for it but 
the word that describes the pace which is a cross be- 
tween a trot and a canter — have no idea of the extra- 
ordinary effect which can be produced by the mere 



1 F''' ! iin 


1 




IfcT 

1 

D 



THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE, BRUSSELS 




THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, ROME : THE KING LEAVING AFTER DELIV- 
ERING HIS SPEECH FROM THE THRONE 



FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE OLD WORLD 431 

movement of soldiers on march. The swing, the 
abandon, the speed, the swagger, the immense " go " 
and elan of the men with the cocktail plumes is the 
very poetry of motion. If Sir Howard Vincent or 
any other capable and enterprising Volunteer officer 
would raise a regiment of Bersaglieri in London, and 
train them to march as these fellows hustled along 
yesterday to the wild, weird music of their bands, he 
would find that he had created the most popular force 
in the Empire. But even if they existed in London 
they would lack the marvellous contrast which made 
their dark green uniforms so effective yesterday. We 
have no bands of scarlet-robed German students to 
march solemnly down the soldier-guarded streets. 
Neither have we white-robed friars or the brown 
Capuchins to add to the kaleidoscope of color, any 
more than we have the column of Marcus Aurelius or 
the Obelisk of Augustus, which both looked down 
solemnly upon the ephemera who chattered over the 
deep buried ruins of the Amphitheatre of Statilius 
Taurus. The averted looks of the silent friars, the 
sidelong glances of the processional students, the 
sombre figures of the passing priests recalled continu- 
ally the deadly feud which rages unappeased, and ap- 
parently unappeasable, between the Vatican and the 
Quirinal. This feud it is which casts its shadow 
absurdly enough over the forthcoming Conference. 

It is by this time well understood by all rational 
men that there will be no question raised at the Con- 
ference except that for the consideration of which it 



432 THE IX IT ED STATES OF EUROPE 

was summoned. But men in the death-grapple are 
not reasonable, neither are the occupants of the hostile 
camps which are intermixed and superimposed one 
upon the other, and who agree in nothing except in 
believing each other capable of anything. Hence, 
however preposterous and incredible it may appear in 
England, there are actually those in Rome who im- 
agine that the delegates of the Pope will attempt, all 
conditions notwithstanding, to force a discussion of the 
restoration of the Temporal Power upon the Con- 
ference of Peace. Of course they will do no such 
thing. Equally, of course, if they were demented 
enough to attempt any such folly, they would be 
promptly called to order and told to hold their tongues. 
But the King's party are far too much taken up by 
suspicion, distrust, and rancor to accept so simple and 
so obvious an answer to their forebodings. They must 
needs, so it is said, be prepared to protest against such 
a contingency. If the Pope's men were to attempt 
to speak on such a question, then the King's men must 
be instructed to put on their hats and walk out. And 
then, they say, the Conference would be at an end. 
As a matter of fact, it would go on just the same as 
before. The question of the Temporal Power would 
be ruled out as peremptorily as if it were the question 
of Poland, or of Ireland, or of Cuba; the Conference 
would proceed with its regular business. The King's 
men could, of course, stay outside if they chose. But 
in all probability they would take off their hats and 
come in again. A great international enterprise, such 



FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE OLD WORLD 433 

as this which the Tsar has set on foot, is not to be 
ruined merely because some of its members elect to 
sulk. But the Government of King Humbert is much 
too sensible to sulk. More than any other Power in 
Europe it would benefit by a slackening of the deadly 
pressure which drives all modern states along the road 
to ruin. 

As I passed along the Yia de Quirinale a small 
crowd was gathered opposite one of the entrances to 
the King's Palace. They were waiting for some of 
the Royal Family to come out. I looked up. Over 
the gate was the inscription, " Clement II., Pontif. 
Max." A little further on was a large crowd on the 
Piazza, from whence, in the interior of the Quirinal, 
the Royal carriages could be seen standing. Over the 
main entrance I read, " Paulus V., Pontif. Max. 
." High overhead on the lofty belfry was 
inscribed the name of another Pope. Everywhere 
and at every turn the Kings from the North are con- 
fronted with the evidence that on everything they 
hold in Rome, even the very Palace in which they 
sleep, " the Pope, his mark," is cut broad and deep. 
It is not thirty years since the Popes made the Quirinal 
their summer residence. What wonder if the black- 
coated gentry who swarm in every street feel that they 
can see everywhere their title-deeds uneffaced on the 
buildings of Rome, and dream and dream and dream 
of the day when the Pope-King will once more reign 
in the City of the Csesars ! It is these dreams of theirs 
which are the nightmare of Italy, and prevent her 
28 



434 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

from throwing herself as heartily as she might into 
the promotion of the Conference of Peace. 

When I was at the Vatican, I had the opportunity 
of discussing it with the Cardinal Secretary of State, 
Cardinal Rampolla, whose observations, I take it, may 
he regarded as expressing the views of the Holy See. 
If so, then the hope of Leo XIII. is that his lengthened 
Pontificate may not close until the nations of the world 
have constituted an International Court or Peace 
Board with an international mandate to mediate be- 
tween any Powers whose disputes have become insolu- 
ble by the ordinary processes of diplomacy. Nothing 
short of a permanent International Court, emanating 
from the conference of the Governments, speaking in 
the name and with the authority of all the Powers, will 
satisfy the Pope. Mediation proffered even by the 
Holy See, which had no international mandate behind 
it, has been unceremoniously ignored by angry nations 
even in this very year. But if the Governments in 
conference assembled were jointly and severally to 
bind themselves to admit the mediation of an inter- 
national representative Board of Peace before they 
proceeded to actual hostilities, war might often be 
averted. The Board would not have authority to 
arbitrate. But it would have the right to mediate. 
Nor should any declaration of war take place until the 
mediating international authority had full opportunity 
to ascertain whether any honorable solution of the 
difficulty could be suggested to the disputants. In 
case they were willing to arbitrate, the Peace Board 




CARDINAL JACOBINI 



CARDINAL PAROCCIII 




CARDINAL STEINHUBER 



CARDINAL R AMPULLA 
Secretary of State to the Vatican 

FOUR OF THE NOTABLE CARDINALS 

Photographs by F. de Fredericis, Borne 



FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE OLD WORLD 435 

would supply the ready-made machinery for such a 
mode of adjudicating the dispute. It would also, in 
time of peace, devote its time to the codification of 
international law, a task to which the Pope thinks 
modern States might profitably devote some portion 
of their energies. 

This idea of the Pope's is substantially the same as 
M. Witte's, who would call the international tribunal 
by the modest title of an Institute of Mediation. But 
its functions would be virtually the same, although the 
idea of authority and the mandate would be less pro- 
nounced. 

To both these proposals strong exception is taken 
by some Russian statesmen, who believe that no inter- 
national body can be created, even although its author- 
ity is strictly limited to that of mediation, without 
limiting the absolute sovereignty of the individual 
state. No doubt, they say, we could fight after the 
mediation had taken place. But on vital questions 
we ought not to expose ourselves to the increased diffi- 
culty of having to fight against the advice of a tribunal 
nominally impartial and possessing an international 
mandate which might nevertheless be packed by rivals 
or foes. What is wanted is to secure the advantages 
of gaining time and of permitting the mediation of 
neutral Powers without exposing us to the danger of 
an adverse judgment from an international court 
which everybody knows would be certain to sacrifice 
the interest of any disputant rather than endanger the 
general peace. 



436 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

There was, however, much more lively interest taken 
in Rome in the probable result of the American con- 
quest of the Philippines than in the possibilities of 
the Peace Conference. The answer to the question: 
What does the Old World think of the New World? 
has never been made with greater emphasis than in 
the Eternal City. The oldest old world regards the 
newest new world with feelings of anger, disgust and 
alarm almost too great for words. The sentiment of 
indignation differs in intensity. But it is universal. 
There is no sympathy for the United States, either 
among Whites or Blacks. In fact, dislike of the 
American seizure of the Philippines and a conviction 
that the humane enthusiasm which made the war pos- 
sible was a mere mask of cant assumed in order to 
facilitate conquest — these are almost the only senti- 
ments shared in common by the rival camps of the 
Quirinal and of the Vatican. 

With the King's men the sentiment is comparatively 
mild. They do not believe in the least in the dis- 
interestedness of the American war of liberation. The 
American declarations are almost universally derided 
as hideous examples of a worse than English hypocrisy. 
Uncle Sam, they say, determined in all things to sur- 
pass John Bull and outdo him, even in Phariseeism 
and cant. The friends of America wring their hands 
in unaffected grief over the fall of the United States 
under the temptation of the lust for territorial expan- 
sion. Its enemies shoot out the lip and shriek in deri- 
sion over what they regard as the unmistakable demon- 



FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE OLD WORLD 437 

stration which the demand for the Philippines affords 
of American cupidity, American bad faith and Amer- 
ican ambition. 

" We told you so! " they exclaim. " That is what 
the unctuous rectitude of the Anglo-Saxon always 
ends in. He always begins by calling heaven to wit- 
ness his unselfish desire to help his neighbors, but he 
always ends by stealing their spoons." 

It is unpleasant for the Anglo-Saxon to hear this on 
every side, but since the peace negotiations have devel- 
oped a demand for the complete cession of the Philip- 
pines, Americans will do well to recognize that some 
such statement as the above represents the current 
opinion of almost everyone in Europe who pays cur- 
sory attention to what is going on abroad. The im- 
mense majority of Europeans are, of course, absolutely 
ignorant of what has happened. Intent on their daily 
toil, they neither know nor care what occurs in other 
hemispheres. But the Europeans who read news- 
papers and who form what may be described as the 
public opinion of the Old World, are practically of 
one mind on the matter. Outside of England I have 
met no non- American who did not dislike the expan- 
sion of America, nor do I think in the whole of Europe 
I have met one European who did not receive my pro- 
testations as to the genuine sincerity with which the 
American people entered the war, with more or less 
mocking incredulity. 

" It is all very well," they say in effect, " to dis- 
semble your love, but why did you kick me downstairs? 



438 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

It was all very well to proclaim your disinterestedness, 
but why did you seize the Philippines? " 

" Mere national brigandage, nakedly odious Pha- 
riseeism," is a phrase which roughly represents the 
judgment of the Old World on the recent develop- 
ments of the New. From which may be learned once 
more the old truth, that in a man's judgment of 
his neighbor's motives we see the mirror of his own 
character. For the most part they express no sur- 
prise. They expected nothing better from these Eng- 
lish of the New World. They are true to their an- 
cestry. But there is in every country a minority of 
thoughtful men who, having for all their lives been 
the staunchest friends of the American common- 
wealth, are now confounded and utterly put to shame 
at what is universally regarded as the apostasy of the 
United States, the abandonment of their national 
policy and the adoption of the world policy of con- 
quest. 

When I listened, as I have been listening for months 
past, to the alternate taunts and lamentations of the 
foes and friends of America, the babel of voices seemed 
at last to merge into one scornful chorus of welcome to 
Uncle Sam! 

" Hell from beneath is moved from thee to meet 
thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, 
even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised 
up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All 
they shall speak and say unto thee, ' Art thou also be- 
come as weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? 



FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE OLD WORLD 439 

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of 
the morning! ' " 

Americans may argue, protest, and rage as they 
please, the Old World has made up its mind upon the 
subject, and nothing that can he said or done in the 
United States will alter its judgment. The American 
Government has come out of its retirement. It has 
thrown its hat into the arena of the world. It is 
launched on a career of conquest which will he all the 
more predatory because it is masked by humanitarian- 
ism. The commonwealth, they hold, has succumbed 
to the malady which has so long plagued the Old 
World. A bright hope for the human race was ex- 
tinguished when the one non-military Power, which 
eschewed all schemes of aggression and annexation, 
enrolled itself among the common herd of conquering 
states. So men talk everywhere in Europe. Whether 
they regard the old American ideal with sympathy or 
with contempt, they all agree in believing that it has 
been abandoned, and that for ever. 

The annexation of the Philippine Islands may seem 
but a small thing, but it is decisive. When Eve ate 
the apple it was but the act of a moment. But it 
barred against her for ever the gates of Paradise. 
What the Old World says is that the New World has 
now eaten of the forbidden fruit, and the flaming 
sword which turned every way will prevent a return 
to the peaceful traditions of the fathers of the republic. 

In the course of my tour I am now compelled to 
admit that I found proof existent of a disposition on 



440 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

the part of the Powers to intervene on behalf of Spain, 
which might have been very serious had it not been 
checked in the bud by the knowledge that England 
would have nothing to do with it. When I was in 
Paris I was positively told that no proposal had ever 
been made to intervene, and that therefore England 
had never had the occasion or opportunity to put her 
foot down on the anti- American coalition. That, no 
doubt was true so far as overt action on the part of 
the Government was concerned. But it is no less true 
that immediately after the war broke out a diplomatic 
representative of the Powers communicated to an 
American Minister at a European Court in plain and 
unmistakable terms the displeasure of the Powers 
and their desire to express that displeasure publicly 
and forcibly. This communication was sufficiently 
serious for the contingency of the use of the allied 
forces of the European nations for the coercion of the 
United States to be frankly discussed between the two 
diplomatists. The result of that discussion was to put 
a summary stop to all notion of European intervention. 

" If you intervene/' said the American Minister, 
" it means war." 

" Yes," rejoined his visitor, " and the forces of the 
great European Powers acting in alliance would over- 
whelm any opposition which America could offer." 

" No doubt," said the American; " but you have to 
bring your forces across the Atlantic to the other 
hemisphere and keep them there for the rest of your 
natural life. For the New World is not going to 




ST. PETERS AND THE VATICAN, HOME 




THE CAPITOL, HOME 



FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE OLD WORLD 441 

submit to the Old World any more. No, sir, not any 
more than it submitted a century since, when the odds 
were far worse. And remember that when you were 
bringing your armies and your navies across three 
thousand miles of sea to fight America you would have 
to count with England, who is certainly not friendly 
to your enterprise." 

This put an extinguisher on the proposal. Nothing 
more was heard of the contemplated intervention. It 
never got so far as to be submitted to England. The 
whole design was checked at the very outset by the 
calm audacity with which the representative of Amer- 
ica played his cards, including the trump card of the 
Anglo-American entente, which henceforth will play 
a leading part in all the dealings of the English-speak- 
ing people with their jealous and suspicious neighbors. 

I am very glad to be able to set forth the actual 
facts as they actually happened. They were told me 
at first hand by the person most immediately con- 
cerned, so that we can absolutely rely upon the 
accuracy of the story. 

If the Old World regards the American growth and 
expansion with unconcealed alarm, the British Em- 
pire, which is seated both on the Old World and the 
New, contemplates the new departure with unaffected 
sympathy. 

The relations between the Embassies of Britain and 
America at Constantinople and at Rome could hardly 
be closer and more cordial if there had been a hard- 
and-fast, cut-and-dried, signed, sealed and delivered 



442 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, between 
the two Powers. 

If things go on as they are going now, every Eng- 
lish-speaking man will feel as I have felt throughout 
this war — that he has not one Ambassador, but two, 
in every capital in Europe, and that wherever he goes 
he is shielded by the might, not of one Empire, but of 
two, a combination beneath whose shadow the whole 
world may yet learn to rest in peace. 



CHAPTER IV 

WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BE ? 

I have visited the capital of every great Power in 
Europe, and also several which are of secondary rank. 
I have been in Constantinople, Sofia, Belgrade, Buda 
Pesth, Berne, and Brussels. Everywhere I have made 
it my duty to ascertain the views of those responsible 
for public affairs on the subject of the Peace Con- 
ference, and after spending nearly three months in 
constant discussion and investigation, I have come 
home full of high hope, and confident that we are on 
the eve of a forward step in the progress of human 
society, from the savagery of lawless war to the reign 
of peace. 

Everything, however, depends upon ourselves. 
These high hopes may be quenched in the blackness 
of despair. But if England do but to herself prove 
true, then, as a famous American remarked the other 
day in Paris, " the iridescent dreams of our boyhood 
will be realized at last." 

I will briefly and succinctly sum up the reasons for 
my belief. In the first place, I know now, as a matter 
of absolute certainty, no longer to be disputed even by 
the most cynical and sceptical, that the Peace Rescript 



444 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

summoning the Governments to the Parliament of 
Peace is no mere flash in the pan, no sudden outburst 
of an enthusiastic youth. Neither is it the mask cover- 
ing any deep-laid Macchiavellian design. It is the 
carefully weighed and long considered expression of 
a reasoned conviction on the part of the ruler of the 
greatest military Empire in the world, a conviction 
which is held and expressed by the Tsar with intense, 
almost passionate, earnestness, but which is shared to 
the full by his most experienced and powerful Min- 
isters. That conviction may be briefly stated as the 
belief that considerations alike of humanity and of 
statesmanship imperatively demand a cessation of the 
present breakneck competition in naval and military 
armaments, which, proceeding at an ever-accelerating 
rate, must, if unchecked, land civilization in the abyss. 
Armaments have already reached such colossal dimen- 
sions that they cannot be used without involving the 
disorganization of society by their mobilization, while 
the increased deadliness of weapons and enormous 
havoc of modern war renders it probable that even 
victory would only be the prelude of the triumph of 
revolutionary Anarchism. War every year becomes 
more and more synonymous with suicide. But the 
armed peace is only one degree less costly than war. 
The international game of beggar-my-neighbor can 
only end in bankruptcy. But no one Power can cry 
off. Only by a general agreement can the ruinous 
game be checked. Therefore the Peace Conference 
has been summoned, and if ever a case was proved 



WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BE? 445 

beyond all gainsaying, by facts beyond dispute and 
calculations mathematically verified, it is that which 
the Tsar will submit to the representatives of the Gov- 
ernments of the world. 

Every Power to which the Tsar's appeal has been 
addressed has admitted the truth of the stern indict- 
ment. Not one Government in the whole world has 
denied the absolute accuracy of the Imperial diagnosis 
of the galloping malady which is devouring the mod- 
ern State. The army and navy estimates for 1897-8 
amounted in Great Britain to £40,000,000, not in- 
cluding the cost of the Indian army, which amounts 
to £14,500,000 more. If this sum were not increased 
for ten years it would amount to a sum of £400,000,- 
000, or £77,000,000 more than the whole sum added 
to our national debt between the Peace of Amiens in 
1802 and the Peace of Paris in 1815, when, for thir- 
teen years, England was locked in death-grapple with 
Napoleon. But this sum, colossal as it is, will not suf- 
fice. This year the total army and navy estimates 
show an increase — not including the supplementary 
naval expenditure, which brings the total up to £43,- 
000,000 — of £3,000,000 in a single year. To this 
must be added the extra supplementary shipbuilding 
programme, which entails a further expense of £2,- 
250,000 per annum for three years. And unless the 
Peace Conference intervenes, this vast snowball will 
grow larger still. 

It is to abate this monstrous plague, which threatens 
the destruction of civilization, that the Russian Gov- 



446 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

ernment has summoned the Conference. The fact 
that a successful icsue of its deliberations would be an 
enormous relief to the Russian Treasury, so far from 
justifying the sneers of the cynic, supplies a material 
justification for the confidence of the optimist. When 
the obvious and admitted interests of mankind har- 
monize with the notorious necessities of the Russian 
Exchequer, there is no sense in cavilling about mo- 
tives. It is more important to ascertain what can be 
done to give practical effect to the aspirations of the 
Tsar. 

In the second place there is no longer any doubt as 
to the intelligence, the determination, and the strength 
of the young Emperor of Russia. Four years of hard 
labor under the tremendous pressure of his Imperial 
responsibilities have ripened the Prince who was re- 
garded as a charming and amiable boy at his accession 
into one of the most serious and courageous of Euro- 
pean Sovereigns. The atmosphere of the Court has not 
destroyed the simplicity of his character, nor have the 
cares of Empire impaired the delightful elan of his 
youth. But Nicholas II. has thought deeply and re- 
flected much. He has gone through his apprentice- 
ship, and he has learned to handle his tools. His 
Ministers all know that they have now to do with a 
man keenly alive to his responsibilities, with clear and 
definite views as to his policy, who is inspired and 
borne up by an overmastering sense of his duty to his 
people. Responsibility is a great schoolmaster. And 
in Nicholas II. it has done its work right well. Behind 



WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BE? 447 

all the modesty and simplicity of the man there is now 
visible the Tsar, the autocrat, whose first duty is to 
see that he is obeyed. 

In the third place, the true significance of the Tsar's 
proposal as to a stay or arrest of armaments is at last 
beginning to make itself perceptible even to the dullest 
of Britons. Emphasized as it is by the intention to 
give an earnest of his sincerity by abandoning the as 
yet unexecuted portion of its own vast programme of 
shipbuilding, it is equivalent to a proposal that for a 
term of five or of ten years the naval supremacy of 
England should be recognized as a fundamental prin- 
ciple of the world's balance of power. If the stereo- 
typing of the status quo be accepted by the conference 
of the nations, the naval supremacy of England would 
be virtually consecrated by an international pact. Our 
present position as sovereign of the seas would be de- 
clared unassailable by general consent — an outcome 
of Russian machinations with which even the Navy 
League might rest content. 

Fourthly, the Peace Conference promises not 
merely to secure a stay of the increase of armaments 
and the proclamation by an international Parliament 
of a modern equivalent of the mediaeval Truce of God 
for five or ten years; it will also boldly raise the vital 
question of mediation and arbitration. If there is 
one thing upon which all responsible rulers are agreed, 
it is that the increased violence and the extended influ- 
ence of the press render it absolutely necessary in the 
interests of civilization to create some additional safe- 



448 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

guard or bulwark against the at present unrestricted 
sweep of national passion. What that safeguard 
should be is one of the most important matters to be 
discussed at the Conference. But that something 
should be done, no sane man can doubt. 

I had the opportunity of hearing one of the ablest 
and most experienced of Russian diplomatists expound 
to me his notion of what could be attempted with every 
hope of success. As, after making the round of Eu- 
rope and hearing every imaginable solution discussed 
from every point of view, no idea seems to me on the 
whole so practical and so simple, I will reproduce, not 
his actual words, but the drift of his argument: — 

" It was well said by M. Lessar that the Conference 
would achieve the maximum if it attempted the mini- 
mum, and that conversely it would achieve the mini- 
mum if it attempted the maximum. What we have 
to seek is the minimum, the first step, and not to at- 
tempt to reach the top of the ladder at one stride. At 
present the ethics of international war are precisely 
those which prevail among the rowdies in a mining 
camp. There the right of private war exists in its 
aboriginal savagery. Two men quarrel, and the only 
question is which shall soonest grab his revolver and 
shoot his opponent. As civilization progresses, society 
does not at once forbid private war. It imposes re- 
strictions, it confines the right within narrower and 
ever narrower limits, until at last, in the most advanced 
nations, the right itself disappears. The analogy will 
help us in attempting to make the first step to imposing 



WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BE? 449 

a check upon the at present unrestricted license of 
international war. If we accept this guide, we shall 
see that the first step is not to insist that the disputants 
shall leave their quarrel to be adjudicated upon by a 
tribunal, impartial it may be, but cold, indifferent, 
and governed by general considerations which override 
the interest or the honor of the individual. No. The 
thin end of the wedge of neutral intervention is very 
different. What is done is to insist that before meet- 
ing in combat, the disputants shall each be compelled 
to entrust the management of the affair to a second 
whom he can implicitly trust to act upon his instruc- 
tions and to defend his honor as if it were his own. 
Instead of shooting at sight, the moment a mortal af- 
front is given, the principals are never allowed to come 
into personal dispute. Everything is in the hands of 
the seconds. They must decide first whether the quar- 
rel is such as to justify a duel, and then they must 
consider whether they ought to suggest any honorable 
way of escape from a hostile meeting. If they cannot 
agree upon any such compromise, they can take the 
opinion of a third party, and press his suggestions upon 
their principals. But the ultimate decision rests in the 
hands of the principals. The utmost that a second can 
do is to refuse to act if the principal refuses to follow 
his advice. In that case he must find a more obliging 
second. If, however, the seconds agree that there is 
nothing to be done but to let them fight, then they 
fight. But if they fight before these preliminaries are 
gone through, and death ensues, then the victor is 
29 



450 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

treated not as a duellist, but as a murderer. That is 
what could be done in the case of international war. 
If, for instance, England and France had carried their 
quarrel about Fashoda to the point of war, the recall 
of their Ambassadors would have been immediately 
followed by actual war. If, however, there had been 
such an agreement as I am supposing might be arrived 
at in the Conference, when the Ambassadors were 
withdrawn, before a shot was fired, France and Eng- 
land would be required to place the whole question in 
the hands of their friends, who would, I suppose, in 
this case have been Russia and America. They would 
have been bound to inquire in the first case whether 
the issue was grave enough to involve the nations in 
war; and in the second case, supposing this to be so, 
whether there was any way of escape from so dread a 
disaster which they could suggest and which England 
and France could honorably accept. If they could 
not find one themselves, they might refer it to a third 
Power, say the President of the Swiss Confederation, 
and agree to press his opinion upon the disputants. 
"No one who knows anything of the true facts of the 
Fashoda case can doubt for a moment that Russia and 
America would have experienced no difficulty in de- 
vising an honorable way of escape for France from the 
unfortunate and untenable position in which she found 
herself. But if, after all, England and France re- 
jected their counsels, they could then fight with all 
the clearer conscience because the friendly mediation 
of their seconds had failed. Such a solution would 



WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BE? 451 

not avert all wars. But I think it would, by gaining 
time, and by affording an opportunity for the friendly 
intervention of a trusty mediator nominated ad hoc, 
prevent at least half the war which would otherwise 
take place. And that, surely, is good enough for a 
beginning." 

I should not in the least be surprised if the views of 
this eminent diplomatist were embodied in the Russian 
programme. "Always mediate before you fight;" 
never draw the sword till your seconds have cleared 
the field. These are practical proposals which, if 
adopted, will be a conspicuous landmark in the evolu- 
tion of human society for many generations to come. 

It is possible that in England many would go fur- 
ther. Some years ago I published a pamphlet entitled 
" Always Arbitrate before you Fight." "When it is 
proposed that we should always arbitrate before we 
fight, we are asking for nothing extravagant or Uto- 
pian. It would be not merely extravagant but pre- 
posterous to propose that we should be ready to arbi- 
trate on everything, binding ourselves beforehand to 
accept the award of the arbitrator, whatever it might 
be; but no such proposition has emanated from any 
responsible body. All that is asked is that, before we 
go to war with each other, we should submit the casus 
belli to a representative tribunal, whose verdict should 
be obtained before a single shot is fired. This is but 
a latter day resurrection, with improvements, of one 
of the oldest institutions in the world. It is a melan- 
choly satire upon that civilized heathenism which is 



452 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

called Modern Christianity that there is not in Chris- 
tendom any institution for restraining the hot fever of 
war as efficient as that which existed in pagan Rome — 
in Rome, which we call heathen, but which was never- 
theless, in its earliest days, more dominated by the 
religious spirit than any of the nations which have 
risen on the ruins of the Roman Empire. Before war 
was declared in ancient Rome, alike under the mon- 
archy and in the republic, the cause of war was sub- 
mitted to a solemn court which, although far short of 
a Board of Arbitration, representing both parties, 
nevertheless was distinctly in advance of any peace- 
keeping appliance now existing in the world. A spe- 
cial college, or court, or board, of high officials existed, 
dating from legendary times, to whom every dispute 
was submitted, and until they had given their decision, 
and a stipulated time had elapsed, no war could be 
begun. Plutarch, in his Lives of " Kuma -" and of 
" Camillus," thus describes this ancient institution by 
which the old Romans endeavored to guard against 
hasty and unjust war: — 

Numa instituted several other sacred orders; two of which 
I shall mention, the Salii and Feciales, which afford particu- 
lar proofs of his piety. The Feciales, who were like the 
Irenophytakes, or guardians of the peace, among the Greeks, 
had, I believe, a name expressive of their office; for they 
were to act and mediate between the two parties, to decide 
their differences by reason, and not suffer them to go to war 
until all hopes of justice were lost. The Greeks call such a 
peace Irene, as puts an end to strife, not by mutual violence, 
but in a rational way. In like manner the Feciales, or 
heralds, were often dispatched to such nations as had in- 



WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BE? 453 

jured the Romans, to persuade them to entertain more 
equitable sentiments; if they rejected their application, 
they called the gods to witness, with imprecations against 
themselves and their country, if their cause was not just; 
and so they declared war. But if the Feciales refused their 
sanction, it was not lawful for any Roman soldier, nor even 
for the king himself, to begin hostilities. War was to com- 
mence with their approbation, as the proper judges whether 
it was just, and then the supreme magistrate was to delib- 
erate concerning the proper means of carrying it on. The 
great misfortunes which befell the city from the Gauls are 
said to have proceeded from the violation of these sacred 
rites. 

What we are seeking to do to-day is little more than 
to reestablish the Feciales on a wider footing, so as to 
include representatives of the other side; but the 
Romans were not the only ancients who recognized 
this principle. " So well was this practice settled in 
Greece that when Sparta and Argos made a treaty of 
alliance they sought to avoid the possibilities of armed 
collision in the future by providing, ' In case a differ- 
ence arises between the two contracting nations, the 
parties shall have recourse to the arbitration of a 
neutral city, according to the custom of their ances- 
tors ! ' Such language would be worthy a place upon 
the statute-books of the most civilized nation of our 
day. So well satisfied was the moral sense of the 
ancients that war should be avoided and peace pro- 
moted that Thucydides declares it to be a crime to 
treat as an enemy one who is willing to arbitrate." • 

Arbitration is not put forward as a substitute for 
war. We only claim that, before we appeal to the 



454 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

last dread tribunal, we shall exhaust the resources of 
civilization by referring the question in dispute to the 
arbitrament of a Court of Peace. 

It is not the fact that any nation which submits its 
case to arbitration thereby binds itself to accept, with 
its eyes shut and its mouth open, any award that may 
issue from the Arbitral Court. If such a rule were 
insisted upon, it would of necessity exclude from arbi- 
tration all the questions upon which popular passion 
rages most fiercely — that is to say, all the questions 
which are most likely to lead to war; whereas nothing 
is more certain than that if all questions, no matter 
what, that imperil peace were to be referred to a Court 
of Arbitration, with full liberty reserved by both dis- 
putants to appeal from the award to the arbitrament 
of war, in nine cases out of ten, probably in ninety- 
nine out of one hundred, the reference to the Court 
would settle the question. In the first place it would 
give both parties time to cool down ; secondly, it would 
compel both nations to examine critically the full 
statement of their opponents' case and the evidence on 
which it was supported ; thirdly, it would clear the air, 
for the judicial verdict of an impartial tribunal must, 
even if mistaken, kill out many of the misconceptions 
and misstatements which inflame international contro- 
versies; and fourthly, and most important of all, it 
would so heavily handicap the nation that drew the 
sword against the award as to enormously increase the 
securities which civilization now possesses against a 
resort to war. 



WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BE? 455 

Professor Max Miiller, in a letter written three 
years ago, touched this question with his accustomed 
sagacity and precision. He writes : — 

It was at the time of the war between Germany and France 
that I had to write a number of letters about an Interna- 
tional Tribunal of Arbitration. Nothing came of it, and the 
chief objection, I remember, was that there are certain ques- 
tions on which no nation with any self-respect would sub- 
mit to arbitration. This is the prejudice that has to be 
eradicated. If the case is so very clear, arbitration can do 
no harm. Besides, it was never meant that in case arbi- 
tration went against a country that country could not de- 
clare its readiness for war and go to war. That is another 
point to be kept in view. The right of self-defence will 
remain with nations as with individuals, but of course a 
nation that disregards such a verdict would have terrible 
moral forces arrayed against itself. Shall we live to see 
the principle of arbitration recognized by the great nations 
of the world? I believe every member of every Parliament 
in Europe and America would approve of the principle, but 
in spite of this nothing can be done. And the vast armies 
go on sucking the very blood out of the people. Nothing 
seems so difficult to carry as a measure against which no 
argument can be produced. 

Of course there are many worthy people who will 
exclaim against the infamy of the mere suggestion 
that an appeal should lie to arms from the award of a 
Court of Arbitration. But these persons should re- 
member that we cannot do everything at once, and 
that there is no more certain method of being left 
without bread than that of insisting upon having the 
whole loaf. Further, the reserved right to fight — 
taking the consequences and paying the price — cannot 



456 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

be taken away, no matter what treaties are signed or 
laws are passed. The right of private war exists in 
every man of us intact to this day, if we care to pay 
the price which society exacts and which is paid under 
the gallows. In time, the nation that appealed from 
the award of the Arbitration Court to the sword would 
fare as ill as the private citizen who sets the law courts 
at defiance, but Ave have not reached that point yet. 
Safely and slow; they stumble who run fast. What 
is proposed at present is simply to interpose before an 
appeal to the sword — if that appeal must come — an 
appeal to the deliberate and judicial verdict of an im- 
partial Court, not selected ad hoc, but existing as a 
permanent part of the apparatus provided by the 
nations for adjusting any differences which may arise 
between them. 

An American writer, Mr. N. S. Shaler, writing in 
the North American Review in December, 1895, sug- 
gested the summoning of a Peace Conference in Wash- 
ington in 1897, for the purpose of devising safeguards 
against war. Some of his suggestions are well worth 
consideration to-day. He wrote: — 

It seems not unreasonable to suggest that the Conference 
might advise the institution of a Permanent International 
Peace Commission, composed of delegates from the several 
national authorities, which should hold annual sessions 
and which could be called together whenever it became evi- 
dent that there was danger of a warlike contest between 
any of the contracting parties, this Permanent Commission 
to have no actual powers except those of mediation preced- 
ing or during a conflict, and of suggestions concerning limi- 



WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BEt 457 

tations or the reduction of standing armies and navies. The 
arrangement for the use of the influence of the Commission 
might well be as follows: The several States might agree 
that, in a case of impending warlike outbreak between any 
two members of the association, the Commission might send 
a delegate or delegates from its members whose efforts at 
mediation should be heard before the declaration of war. 
This commission might furthermore agree to consider the 
recommendations for progressive disarmament at some 
definite and proportional rate, or for the replacement of 
standing armies by an organized militia, say of the Swiss 
type. The considerations may extend to the point of sub- 
mitting the propositions to the legislature or other bodies 
which have charge of the budgets of the several States, there 
being no guarantee given that the Government concerned 
shall approve of the propositions as submitted by the Com- 
mission. It might be well to charge the Commission with 
the task of bettering the statement of the body of customs 
which is termed international law; it is possible that in 
course of time something like effective codification of these 
usages might be brought about. 

The Codification of the Law of Nations is one of 
the subjects the Pope is strongly of opinion should be 
undertaken by the forthcoming Conference. 

I cannot conclude this chapter more appropriately 
than by quoting the earnest and eloquent appeal issued 
in 1896 by the American, Irish and English Cardinals 
in favor of the establishment of a permanent Court 
of Arbitration as a substitute for war. They say : — 

We are well aware that such a project is beset with prac- 
tical difficulties. We believe that they will not prove to 
be insuperable if the desire to overcome them be genuine 
and general. Such a Court existed for centuries, when the 
nations of Christendom were united in one Faith. And 



458 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

have we not seen nations appeal to that same Court for its 
judgment in our own day? 

The establishment of a permanent tribunal, composed, 
may be, of trusted representatives of each Sovereign nation, 
with power to nominate judges and umpires according to the 
nature of the differences that arise, and a common accept- 
ance of general principles denning and limiting the juris- 
diction and subject-matter of such tribunal, would create 
new guarantees for peace that could not fail to influence 
the whole of Christendom. Such an International Court of 
Arbitration would form a second line of defence, to be called 
into requisition only after the ordinary resources of diplo- 
macy had been exhausted. It would at least postpone the 
outbreak of hostilities until reason and common sense had 
formally pronounced their last word. 

This is a matter of which the constitution and procedure 
must be settled by Governments. But as Governments are 
becoming more identified with the aspirations, and moulded 
by the desires of the people, an appeal in the first instance 
must be addressed to the people. 

Yea, verily, and it is the People who will decide! 



CHAPTER V 



A PILGRIMAGE OF PEACE 



The year having for the most part been given up 
by the English-speaking peoples to making two wars 
and threatening to make a third, it is surely about 
time that they did something for peace. The fact 
that they alone among the civilized races have this year 
felt the smart and borne the burden of campaigns on 
land and sea, is in itself a reason why they should now 
take action for the avoidance of war in the future. 

Fortunately the moment is propitious on both sides 
of the Atlantic. The peace with Spain, which for 
some time seemed in danger, is now at last definitely 
secured, and there is no longer any peril to civilization 
either from barbarism triumphant in the Soudan or 
from the unfriendly acts of other Powers in the Mle 
Valley. If only as a thank-offering for these crown- 
ing mercies vouchsafed to our arms, we owe it to our- 
selves and our neighbors to do what in us lies to render 
avoidable and unnecessary the appeals to arms, and to 
diminish so far as is practicable the cruel pressure of 
the cost of armaments for war. 

Hitherto for the most part the advocates of peace 
have been compelled perforce to confine themselves to 



460 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

the enunciation of general principles, with here and 
there a practical application. But this year the un- 
expected and courageous initiative of the Russian 
Emperor has suddenly rendered feasible the practical 
realization of ideals, all hope for the attainment of 
which has been regarded as the vainest of the pious 
aspirations of mankind. After many years of talk, 
the time has come for action. Words must now give 
place to deeds, and instead of mere dissertations on 
the abstract virtues of peace, there can be substituted 
the giving of direct practical support to the first great 
international effort that has been made to reduce arma- 
ments and provide some kind of international safe- 
guard against the passions which hurry nations into 
needless wars. 

This year, on the eighteenth of May, a Conference 
of all the Governments of the civilized world will meet 
at The Hague to return a definite answer to the appeal 
addressed to the reason and conscience of mankind 
by the Emperor of Russia. However we may differ 
concerning the motives or the ultimate aims of the 
author of the Peace Rescript — and those who know 
him best are the most confident as to his sincerity and 
earnestness for peace — the appeal to the Conference 
constitutes a solemn challenge to the moral sense of 
each one of us. 

The appalling evils of the present system are ad- 
mitted by all. ISTot a single Government has denied 
the accuracy of the terrible indictment brought against 
it in the Tsar's circular. The obligation to find, if 



A PILGRIMAGE OF PEACE 461 

possible, a remedy is imperative. That obligation 
rests upon every nation. Eo one can throw the sole 
responsibility for the solution of the problem upon the 
Ruler who had the courage to tackle the question. It 
is our duty as much as his. What are we doing to 
help him to solve it ? 

It is fortunate that the problem, although absolutely 
insoluble if one element be wanting, is comparatively 
simple if that element be supplied. And it is not less 
fortunate that this now indispensable element is one 
the supplying of which lies within the capacity of each 
one of us, and that if all of us but act together, no prac- 
tical difficulty will be experienced in devising meas- 
ures to arrest the growth of armaments, and to provide 
an international barrier against future wars. The 
Conference and the Governments will furnish all the 
machinery that is necessary. But it is for the people 
themselves to get up steam. The Conference will be 
foredoomed to impotence, if there is no motive power 
at the back of it in the shape of an imperious and irre- 
sistible demand from the nations who suffer and from 
the peoples who groan under the intolerable burden 
of the armed peace. To evoke that demand, to render 
articulate, audible and imperative the longing of the 
masses of the people — that is the duty of all who love 
their fellow-men, between this day and the meeting 
of the Conference. 

The question of how it is to be done is one which 
each individual must decide according to the wisdom 
which he possesses, and the opportunities of influencing 



462 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

his fellows which he can command. To use a homely 
phrase, if each one keeps the kettle boiling in his own 
circle there will be no lack of steam when the Con- 
ference meets. But as individual efforts are apt to 
lose much of their force if they lack cohesion, coopera- 
tion, and unity of direction, it is proposed to make the 
attempt to stimulate local effort and harmonize it on 
an international scale by the immediate organization 
of a great Pilgrimage of Peace through all nations, be- 
ginning at San Francisco and ending at St. Peters- 
burg. In proclaiming a Holy War against War and 
in summoning all the Governments to a Conference 
upon the perils with which modern armaments 
threaten the modern State, the Emperor of Russia 
has embarked upon an enterprise which, however glo- 
rious it may be, is inevitably doomed to immediate 
failure unless the crusade is preached among the peo- 
ples, and a response, hearty and universal from below, 
hails the appeal from above. 

To give such a propaganda of peace a practical ob- 
jective, and to provide the simplest and most effective 
method of combining into one visible and organic 
whole all the forces making for peace and for an abate- 
ment of armaments, it is proposed to arrange for a 
Pilgrimage of Peace. As the original initiative of the 
Conference was taken by the Autocrat of the East, it 
is obviously the right thing that the initiative of the 
national response should come from the free democra- 
cies of the West. The English-speaking folk, whether 
they live in the United Kingdom or the United States, 



A PILGRIMAGE OF PEACE 463 

are as a unit on this question. The Americans must 
of course readjust their armaments to their new re- 
sponsibilities. They are doing this to-day, but, like 
the elder branch of the race, they have not the least 
intention of abandoning the secular protest which the 
English-speaking race has always made against the 
scourge of universal compulsory military service and 
the burdens of the armed peace. 

It is hoped that in every centre of population in 
Britain and America the people will have been gath- 
ered together under their local leaders to express in 
formal resolution their determination that the Peace 
Conference shall be made a success, and to appoint a 
local committee for the furtherance of the objects of 
the Conference. From each of these local committees 
so appointed one delegate might be chosen to serve on 
the joint national committee of the two English-speak- 
ing nations; for in this good work, for the first time, 
the Empire and the Republic could act as if they were 
indeed but component parts of the great Common- 
wealth of the English-speaking folk. The Anglo- 
American National Committees thus constituted, it 
is proposed, should appoint a joint deputation to wait 
upon the Tsar. 

The object of this deputation of the English-speak- 
ing folk would be, first, to convey to the Tsar before 
the Conference opens the welcome assurance that he 
has behind him in his beneficent enterprise the im- 
mense force of the English-speaking race; and, sec- 
ondly, while on their way to St. Petersburg, to make 



464 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

a Pilgrimage of Peace throughout Europe summoning 
all the other nations to bestir themselves, and to unite 
with them in this great manifestation of popular en- 
thusiasm in the cause of peace. The Pilgrimage 
would serve as the international rallying point of the 
new Crusade. In every land it would proclaim in 
clear and unmistakable fashion the passionate prayer 
of the overburdened peoples, — Give us peace in our 
time, good Lord! 

The proposal has been received with the utmost en- 
thusiasm wherever it has been mooted. Even despite 
the fever of Fashoda and the absence of any attempt 
to mobilize the forces of peace, there has been a very 
considerable expression of public opinion. The recent 
dispute with France, which at one time threatened 
the success of the demonstration, will now be its most 
valuable object-lesson. Nothing could more clearly 
bring before the mind of the British peoples — first, the 
peril that sudden gusts of passion may hurry neighbor- 
ing nations into war; secondly, the urgent need for 
some international bulwark against such a peril; and 
thirdly, the reality of the supremacy of the British 
fleet, which, if the Tsar's proposal is accepted, will re- 
ceive international recognition as one of the funda- 
mental elements of the status quo. 

The American Representatives would be welcomed 
as the most " outward and visible sign " known and 
read of all men, that in the good work of peace the 
English-speaking world is not two, but one, and that at 
last, in the fulness of time, the English-speaking folk 



A PILGRIMAGE OF PEACE 465 

are able to act together as a unit in the best interests of 
mankind. 

The first to join the pilgrimage, after its initiation 
by the English-speaking folk, would be the representa- 
tives of the seven smaller free States — Switzerland, 
Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and 
Portugal. It might possibly be arranged that one 
representative from each of these States should be 
present at the Albert Hall send-off, so that the English- 
speaking deputation would make its debut on the Con- 
tinent supported by the representatives of seven small 
States which contain 27,000,000 of the most intelli- 
gent and most pacific of the population of Europe. 

When the great International Deputation made its 
debut in Paris, there is no question as to the immense 
effect which its mere arrival would have upon the 
public mind of Europe. That effect would be deep- 
ened and strengthened by every succeeding day. 
There would be receptions at the British and Amer- 
ican Embassies, public conferences for both men and 
women, public demonstrations in the great towns, and 
then, finally, when the French members had been 
added to the Deputation, they would all wait upon 
the President and his Ministers, urging upon them 
the supreme importance of backing up at the Con- 
ference the proposals of the present ally of France. 

From Paris the great International Pilgrimage 

would go to Berlin, where the experiences of Paris 

would be repeated. Arrangements would have to be 

made for demonstrations in all the great cities in the 

30 



466 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

Empire. There is little doubt that the Deputation 
would receive a hearty welcome from the Kaiser, with 
whose Godspeed the great Pilgrimage would roll on 
to Vienna and Pesth, where, by-the-by, its reception 
would be most enthusiastic, and then having been 
swollen by German and Austro-Hungarian mem- 
bers, it would go to Rome. When the Italian con- 
tingent was added to the number, the Deputation 
would go to St. Petersburg, where it would be received 
by the Tsar, who would learn from the lips of the 
international pilgrims how passionately the peoples 
desire peace, how enthusiastically they have responded 
to his initiative, and how emphatically they bid him 
stand firm in the name of " God and the people " and 
achieve this great good for humanity. 

There is no need to elaborate details. This brief 
outline is enough to indicate the magnitude of the 
scale upon which the response of the nations might be 
made to the initiative of the Tsar. Neither is it neces- 
sary to insist too much on the particular programme 
of reform which may find favor with the Tsar and his 
advisers. The Conference will be an open one, and 
it is as much our responsibility as his to devise practical 
measures for coping with the evil that confronts us. 

But it is understood that the practical proposals 
which will come before the Conference will include : — 

(1) A " Truce of God " for ixve or ten years. 

(2) A halt or arrest of armaments for a similar 
period. 

(3) An international agreement by all the Powers 



A PILGRIMAGE OF PEACE 467 

that, in case of disputes arising during the Truce of 
God, the future disputants bind themselves not to 
declare war until they have invoked the mediation of 
friendly Powers who should in all cases have a full 
opportunity of intervening in the interests of peace 
before the last appeal is made to the sword. 

If this proposal be accepted we shall always gain 
time, and always provide the Power that does not want 
to fight with an honorable way of escape before the 
sword is unsheathed. The recognition of this prin- 
ciple is the next great onward step to be taken in the 
evolution of humanity. 

Be this as it may, the immediate question is not, 
What shall the Conference decide; but whether the 
peoples will at once set about getting up steam with 
sufficient pressure to overcome the vis inertice of 
diplomacy and the cynical scepticism of the Govern- 
ments. 

Already there is ample evidence that the Inter- 
national Pilgrimage of Peace would be hailed by the 
millions as a new harbinger of hope among the nations. 

It would affirm the unity of the English-speaking 
race and it would base that unity on the promotion of 
peace. 

It would array all the smaller nations in support of 
the English-speaking initiative, and it would, for the 
first time in the history of our race, bring the represen- 
tatives of the English-speaking world as a unit to ap- 
peal for common action to the people of the at present 
sadly dis-United States of Europe. 



468 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 

It would give an immense stimulus to peace propa- 
ganda everywhere. If it succeeded it would stave off 
a threatened increase of naval expenditure of many 
millions a year, and even if it failed it would have 
profoundly affected for good the future of the rela- 
tions between the Slavonic and the Anglo-American 
races. 

All this is admitted, for it is indeed indisputable. 
The only question is whether it is to be done. 






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